


TDWH AU Prompts and Shorts

by Feynite



Series: The Dread Wolf's Heart [5]
Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Dark!Lavellan, Dark!Solas, F/M, Masturbation, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Oral Sex, Smut, Tags Subject to Change, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, dubcon, various porn tropes may appear
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-11-12
Updated: 2016-01-02
Packaged: 2018-05-01 06:39:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 32,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5195924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Feynite/pseuds/Feynite
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Various (generally smut-filled) one-shots for the Dark!Solas AU of The Dread Wolf's Heart.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Solas' POV

**Author's Note:**

> Alright. So. Here's where things start getting into 'AU of an AU' type territory. Pretty much none of this will make sense unless you've at least read the TDWH AU, if not TDWH itself. The majority of these come from various tumblr prompts.
> 
> First up, Solas' POV on all this!

The beasts are hungry.

Riotous. Demanding. Prowling the edges of a cage that warps and twists, bends and fractures; swells and sings. He stares at his skin, frowning at the black veins spreading again. Voice. Song. No, not song, colour. Black in the blood. He twists his wrist, and it goes back; white scales gleaming.

Does it look right now?

…Yes. Yes, right now.

He shakes the edges; drifts a moment. The forge. The - no, not the forge. Or. Yes. The chaos of the world burning fuels the forge to build it anew. His power snaps as he finds the reins again and grasps them tight, and the cage strengthens. Pushes back. Seals the beasts again until he can breathe, and think clearly.

A single fortress gleams in the midst of the chaos. Safe and pristine, wrapped in layers of magic that shine like gemstones in the darkness. Yes. Yes, good, that pleases him. The seal is tight. His, his, his. Safe. His. He runs his claws over it before he turns and leaves; back to the grim work, the blood and the ice and the fire.

He hears her speaking.

It takes him a moment to remember, to find his voice; then he answers her. Soft. Small. She is upset. Of course she is upset. She is not meant for cages.

_sheisfleshandsoftandweakcutherawayleaveherbehindsheisfleshdrinkthebloodtakethesouldrainitcutherawayswallowherwhole_

NO.

_Be silent._

_They_. They are meant for cages. Cages to crush until there is nothing left of them save the power, and he drinks it deeply. She is flesh but she is  _his_ , and they are not. They are enemies bound and chained and given back what they deserve. They are food. He drinks their blood and  _she. IS. HIS._

Not theirs.

Power snaps, and his ire is drawn by the vermin fighting back. He scooped the good mice into their cages, but the bad rats still have teeth and claws. The fight is short. Wings snapping, magic flaring; always he is victorious, but this is too short. Far too short.

He realizes, and fury floods him as he sees the wretched little rats, with their magic and bound spirit slaves, attacking his gilded gem; peeling at the layers he has put up. 

Fast. Fast, he flies, and high, eight wings beating through the frozen air, the roar shaking the world until the rats begin to flee. Not quick enough. He rends them with iced-over jaws, spills blood over his scales, exalts in their death and then seizes himself again.

Her. Her, she, the gem. The gem in the gem. 

He sends himself to her, wing form circling above even as elven body (does it look right? Is this how it looks?) sinks into soft sheets. Warm arms. He remembers, for a moment; so clearly when he is with her. What is soft. What is kindness. What is held in blood and bone and skin; why it matters.

_shouldeatherswallowherkeepherhereneverleaveheartsbelonginchestsswallowtheheartdevourherwholehisheartbeathis_

No.

No, no that is not…

No.

She is safe.

She is his.


	2. AU of an AU of an AU Fanfic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wherein Solas recaptures Lavellan because she actually opens a rift into the Fade instead of the Crossroads.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by a prompt requesting really weird Fade sex. Originally posted on Halloween, for extra spookiness points.

She opens a rift beneath herself, and drops into the Fade.

It isn’t… wholly as different an experience as it usually is.

The elven woman who had grabbed her becomes more wisp-ish and faded, and her descent slows. The storms in the air change, and she becomes aware that she’s in the Fade, but the Fade, in turn, feels much closer to the real world than it ever had before.

She drifts, downwards, skittering between storms and magic, gravity fluctuating wildly as she sometimes finds herself walking down the mountain, and sometimes finds herself floating, falling sideways; catching onto drifting boulders, and trying to keep her sense of direction from spinning out of control as she flies.

Then a tremendous roar splits the air.

No prizes for guessing who  _that_  is.

At least he’s probably still alive, then.

She tries to focus on her escape, but it is, of course, a doomed effort. A tremendous dragon, twisted and with too-many wings, too-many limbs, bursts through the sky in a hail of fire and ice.

She’s not quite sure what happens next, whether the other two dragons flee or whether there’s a fight. Her thoughts are on escaping.

But of course, he can hear her thoughts.

For a time there is only her desperation, and the frightening certainty that it is futile, and her unwavering refusal to give in to that, and then the intense feeling of being pursued. She runs. Something clips at her heels, shadows racing, claws reaching; voices whispering.

The air twists. She lurches to a halt as she collides with something.

Armour. Hot. Dark. Spiked shapes, and he’s almost himself, except that it all looks wrong in the corners of her vision. She is trapped against his chest, but she still sees pieces of it; vast wings, and a coiling tail, and hands that grip her like talons. Too large and long-fingered.

It feels like something vast and hungry has just closed around her.

“Caught you,” he says, in a voice that rumbles through both of them; a voice edged with many others, echoing on the tail ends of it.

“Damn,” she replies.

He chuckles, and the air around them sparks and flares. Leaning down, he inhales deeply; something plucks at her, some sensation of touch, even though his grip on her doesn’t shift. It feels like hands searching her over. They pause at the scrapes on her, from climbing; at the bruises on her throat, and on her shins, from the rocks.

He hisses, and a long, unfamiliar tongue stretches out, and licks at the pulse of her neck. Magic washes over her, and the scrapes close; the bruises recede.

“Mine,” he murmurs. “My heart. Mine. Caught you in time.”

Something coils around her ankles. It pools, like dark water.

He growls.

“No!”

The pool recedes.

She tries to pull back, to look at him, but he holds her still.

“Vhenan,” he says. “Vhenan, vhenan I am sorry, I am sorry it wants… I have no… please, it is too much. I cannot… no fear, please…”

She can’t say she succeeds in obliging his request when his grip on her tightens, and she feels his claws begin to shred into her armour.

_He’s not in control,_  she realizes. He probably isn’t completely out of it, either, but this is the most disjointed she’s ever seen him. Ever heard him. Everything about him is fractured; his body, his voice, even his thoughts, it seems. One moment he licks at the tip of her ear, and the next he’s growling and hissing as some awful force tries to twist her down and into reaching shadows.

He presses her uncomfortably close.

As if he’s trying to sink her into his skin.

“It’s alright,” she tells him, sucking in deep breaths. “It’s alright, Solas. Fen’Harel. Ar lath ma, be calm. I’m not going anywhere.”

Reaching up, she grasps at his back. Her hands stop when they come to the base of unnatural, leathery outcroppings; wings. She sucks in a steadying breath, and then runs her fingers along them.

The wings don’t disappear.

Her touch does seem to inspire some effect, though, as a low, rumbling purr starts up; reverberating through her.

The air tingles.

“Mine,” he breathes, and inhales deeply again. He leans back enough to rub his face along the side of hers. She still can’t see him; at this point, she’s not sure she wants to.

His claws scrabble at her armour, again, until with a rush of air she finds it all quite suddenly gone.

“Impatient again?” she asks, shooting for levity.

Her bravado falls short. The chuckle she attempts cracks in half.

The grip on her keeps her tightly pressed, and the joints and edges of his armour bite into her skin; he hisses as she is hurt, and his armour goes, too, and another wash of healing magic falls over her once more.

Taking the opening, she runs her hands across every part of him she can reach; over sharp scales and soft skin, and veins that pulse, and the base of his thrashing, unnerving tail.

The tip of it curls up the back of one of her legs.

He bites her shoulder hard enough to draw blood, and then growls, and laps at it; heals her again.

“Ir abelas,” he whispers, and it feels like he’s apologizing for more than just the bite.

“It’s alright,” she tells him. “It’s alight.”

The tingling in the air around them grows, and she feels that strange, exploratory touch return; curling around her like ghostly fingers. Not spirits, she doesn’t think; it’s him, somehow. All of it. His power spilling out, like he’s inexpertly tried to cram too much of himself in too small of a shell.

Something presses against the front of her hip.

Not really much of a mystery as to what  _that_  is, at least.

He feels, ah, decidedly  _larger_  than usual, though - all of him is decidedly larger than usual - and her unease intensifies.

Pale, clawed hands come around to cup her face, and finally he pulls back and looks at her.

Black eyes.

Sunken cheeks.

White, bone-chip scales.

Dark veins.

Sharp teeth, and a long, blood red tongue.

He tips his forehead against hers.

“Do not fear,” he says, and then kisses her.

His lips are hot, and his tongue coils into her mouth, and she tries to close her eyes and think of _him_  but it’s all so very strange. He’s not turning back to anything even close to normal. She touches and kisses, and the tingling against her skin is making her nerves pulse, but he stays strange.

And then one of his scales chips off.

He shudders, and exhales, and pulls her close. His touch slips down her back. She feels it acutely, as he turns one of his hands and trails the side of a claw, gently, down her skin.

“Soft,” he murmurs.

“What have I told you about calling me that?” she asks.

He chuckles, and she almost cries at the sound; at how much closer to normal it is.

Which isn’t to say that things have suddenly dropped from the realms of ‘weird’.

His tail curls around one of her legs, the tip flaring up and brushing at the curve of her ass. Her nerves are still singing, and the whispering touch of ghostly fingers on her moves its focus, slipping around her hips and then curling between her thighs. Trailing across the sensitive skin at the top of her legs, before creeping towards her entrance.

She jolts forward a little as it finds its target, and his hips buck against hers, thrusting his erection against her with inexpert desperation.

“No,” he says whispers, so faintly she almost misses it. “Please, no. Not… no.”

“Solas,” she says, and something in her settles; determination rising up to replace her discomfort.

Leaning up, she kisses him again.

The strange, phantom touches caress her in familiar ways, and she finds herself wondering if that isn’t part of the problem. He’s inside of himself and outside of himself; he’s split and disjointed, and it’s leaving cracks for all of the other things to get through.

She gently pushes his tongue back into his own mouth, and drags her teeth across his lower lip.

“Look at me,” she says, taking his face in her hands; inhaling a little sharply as a pulsing warmth slides into her.

He looks at her.

She brushes her thumbs across his cheeks. The scales she flecks off bite at her skin. She ignores the scratches they leave behind.

“You’re too sharp, still, ma sa’lath,” she tells him.

“Too sharp,” he echoes, and one of his clawed hands reaches up, and rests over top of her own.

He sucks in a shuddering breath, and gradually the claws begin to recede, somewhat. Not entirely; but enough so that they almost look like hands again. The edges of his scales soften, and his wings curl around, folding her in leathery shadows as the magic caressing her licks forward, and she stumbles a bit at the jolt of pleasure; falls against him.

“Not safe,” he whispers. “The barrier is gone. I am sorry, vhenan.”

“It’s alright. I’ll protect you,” she blurts.

He huffs, and though his features stay strange, his expression is gentle as he presses his lips to her with a less devouring touch.

“You would be safer with me… no, no, no,  _stop that,”_  he hisses.

“I  _am_  with you,” she tells him, but then he kisses her again, hungry and fierce, and something nudges her legs wider apart. She shivers, and clutches him, and for one terrifying moment feels perilously close to being swept away again.

“With me,” he repeats.

“Don’t,” she asks him; not even wholly sure what she is asking, but it makes him still.

“Of course not. Of course not, ma vhenan. My heart should be free,” he whispers. “I would not. I would never. That is not me, is it?”

“No, it’s really not,” she says, and that time she’s a little bit surer of what strange discussion they’re having.

He sighs and folds against her, and hands that are more like hands trail over her skin; and the touch of the magic upon it dims. Then he scoops her up, to her immense surprise; lifting her in one smooth motion and surging upwards, to the damaged castle, gleaming with the remnants of its shattered barrier in the Fade. His wings beat and the air whirls, harsh until they land again.

“Did they frighten you?” he wonders. “No, of course not. Brave, she would have seized the opening. Run. Get away, find a way. Rush into the danger. Tumble into the Fade. She loves me, wants to save me, save the world. Save all the things that don’t deserve it.”

He buries his nose against her temple, and inhales again, breathing her in as they land.

The air around them changes. It’s not quite a fresh barrier. But the storms recede, and it clears, sweetening and turning towards a pleasant, stable warmth. 

“You deserve saving,” she tells him.

He sets her on her feet, and regards her carefully for moment.

She returns his assessment.

He looks… better. A little. Still mostly like something out of a nightmare, but not wholly unrecognisable.

It’s a bit of surprise when he drops to his knees in front of her. His erection is hard and pulsing, very visible as her lowers himself to the ground, until he moves forward and takes her hips in his hands. Brushes his thumbs against her skin, and slips his tongue against her folds.

She holds steady for a moment; but soon enough she’s braced against his shoulders, her legs trembling as he coaxes her with long, savouring strokes, carrying her through one orgasm and on to another. His tongue is rough and warm and shorter than before.

Soft sparks begin to flare at his touch. She’s a little alarmed, at first, but he murmurs something unintelligibly comforting at her, and runs his thumbs in soothing circles, and after a moment she realizes that the sensation isn’t unpleasant.

A little weird, but probably one of the lesser weirdnesses, all in all.

When she comes a third time and finally loses her last battle with keeping her feet, he sweeps her up before she tumbles over.

“Caught you again,” he murmurs, and shifts, and presses a kiss to her neck.

“Good job,” she tells him, and offers him a pat on the shoulder.

He huffs in amusement.

The air around them shifts again, and, in rather dazed interest, she watches from his embrace as shadowy trees begin to spring up around the interior of the courtyard. His skin hums a little beneath her hands as they weave together, branches forming an elaborate chamber that seals off the space, and closes up over their heads, until the stormy sky can no longer be seen.

It’s dark, for a moment. He’s so close she can feel the thunder of his heartbeat; hear her own, unnerving for a moment, in her ears.

A stab of fear rushes through her. It’s too much like Dumat’s prison in the Fade.

But then wisps of starlight drop down, illuminating the new cage, and the sound recedes, and he presses soft kisses against her again. She’s a little surprised to find that the change actually  _is_  a bit comforting, once the comparison is gone. Even as she laments the return to confinement, at least she doesn’t feel so much like she’s been dragged raw and into the open.

The wings curl around her more firmly. His touch drifts down between her legs; but she feels the brush of his claw tips, and catches his hand instead.

“Too sharp, still,” she tells him.

He twines his fingers with hers, and the magic returns. She can see it, now. Pulsing light, green like the anchor. It presses into her and works her open.

She reaches for him, and takes him in hand. He lets out a rough breath when her fingers close around him. She doesn’t get more than a few strokes in before he starts thrusting against her, and ends up dragging friction away from the side of her thigh as much as her hand.

The spell is warm against her skin as it keeps up a steady rhythm inside and against her, circling and twisting, and even darting back to brush gently across her other opening. 

A lone, narrow tendril presses its way inside. More of an odd sensation than anything else.

He bites her again.

She flicks his ear.

“Apologies,” he murmurs, and she’s almost expecting the healing spell.

The wash of magic makes her nerves sing this time, though, and she gasps in surprise at it unexpectedly wrings another orgasm out of her. The magic thrusting inside of her flares and widens, and sets stars bursting behind her eyes.

It drags a cry from her lips.

“What was  _that?”_  she asks him, panting as she comes back down.

“Magic,” he tells her, with just the faintest, smug little smile.

Bastard.

He chuckles again, though, and sounds more like himself when he does it. And when he runs his thumb against the side of hers, his claws are gone.

She presses kisses to his chest. Chases away the black veins there, until she works her way up to his neck, and though he tries to push her back, she ends up gently coaxing him down instead.

She eases her way over him herself. The magic disperses, trailing lines across her thighs as she slowly sinks onto him. His gaze stays fixed to her, watching until she has him; until she’s stretched full of him. Then she clasps both of his hands in hers, and threads their fingers together, and sits on him awhile.

His hips buck.

She clenches around him, and drags a rough sound from his throat.

Then she begins to move. 

After a few rises and falls she has to let go of his hands to pick up the pace. She dips a kiss to his shoulder, and he trails his touch up her thigh; grips her ass and pulls her back down onto him.

She bites him.

The surprised sound it elicits makes it worth the feel of scales scraping at her teeth.

He gives her a consternated look, and she smiles at him. Works her way back up and moves with more intensity, as he clearly wants her to. He tries to roll them over a few times, but she finds herself thwarting him at each point; not that she’s somehow overpowering him, but it takes appreciably little discouragement for him to subside.

It isn’t until he comes that she realizes his tail is gone.

She gives his ass an appreciative examination as reward, finally letting him roll them over so she can trail her fingers down his spine, and grasp him tightly for a moment.

He curls around her like an overgrown cat, panting and clutching in return, dropping kisses onto her as she caresses him in long, comforting strokes.

“Getting better?” she asks.

“I am sorry,” he says. “I am sorry, you are afraid, I should not have… I am sorry.”

“Apology accepted.” she tells him. After all, if he’s going to compliment her bravery, he should learn to expect it.

He shakes, a little.

“Will you tell me what happened?” she wonders, murmuring the question into his shoulder.

“They disrupted me,” he says. “I am not even certain how, but they upset the equilibrium of the souls. I had to fight for control again.”

Oh they  _did_ , did they?

She feels a brief, irrational surge of protectiveness, and tightens her hold on him.

“Who?” she asks.

Maybe not the most sensible reaction, all things considered. But for all his fixation on her fear  _of_  him, her biggest fear is still reserved  _for_  him.

He leans back a little and looks at her. His expression is tender. The scales are beginning to recede, and it could be her imagination, but she thinks his wings are smaller, too.

“It is no matter,” he says, gently. “I will kill them. Perhaps I will lay their heads at your feet. They have caused this disturbance, after all; it would be fitting to offer such tribute to you.”

“I’m not interested in tributes,” she tells him.

He hums, and kisses her; and she feels some grief, too, because if these people are fighting him, then they’re probably just fighting to survive. They might not even know how perilous it would be to disrupt his control; they might not be able to fathom, all things considered, that there could be any _worse_  option than him.

“You may yet have them anyway,’ he decides.

“What am I going to do with a couple of rotting dragon heads, hmm? Or elven heads. Whichever. I didn’t even like the skulls you put in the stables.”

He frowns, a little.

“What was wrong with the skulls?”

“They’re  _skulls_  for one thing,” she says.

After a moment, he leans forward and presses his lips to hers; solid and unexpectedly sweet.

“Picky,” he murmurs.

“Picky and soft. The compliments you give me these days,” she grumbles back.

But she holds him when he sighs and sags against her.

“I am sorry your escape attempt failed,” he said.

“No you’re not,” she replied.

“No, I’m not,” he agreed. “But I am sorry to have grieved you. An unexpected cruelty, to offer you even that brief moment of hope, only to dash it again. And then to…”

He trails off, and lets out a breath.

“It is not the sex that bothers me,” she tells him.

“I know,” he says. “I know.”

“Get rid of him,” she asks, again.

He pulls back, and brushes a touch to her temple. He opens his mouth to answer, but then closes it again. Shakes his head, briefly.

She looks away from him.

The corners of her eyes sting.

“After,” he promises. “I swear it.”

After.

If they make it that long.


	3. Thrones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From the following prompt: Dark!Solas AU, he wants to watch Lavellan make herself come, while he narrates what he's going to do to her.

“Come with me,” he asks.

There’s a particular gleam in his dark, dark eyes, but strangely, he hasn’t made much of a move towards her since he turned up today. They’d spoken for a while and he’d watched her a lot, but not much else.

So she accepts the offer of his hand when he gives it to her, mostly curious as to what he’s up to. His fingers are smooth and cool where they curl around hers.

He smiles, and leads her into the main hall.

His grip on her changes from a somewhat familiar tangling of fingers to something a little more courtly when they get there, and she realizes what he’s after as he steers her towards the thrones at the end of the room.

She raises an eyebrow at him when they stop in front of hers.

“I made it for you,” he tells her, which she’d already more or less figured out, but had been pointedly not thinking about. “Do you not like it?”

“I’m not wholly partial to thrones in general,” she tells him.

“You used to sit in one.”

“I didn’t relish the experience.”

“But you were suited to it. And this time, you will not sit alone.”

He lifts her hand to his lips, and presses a kiss to the back of it.

“I would like to see you in it,” he tells her.

“I don’t think so,” she replies, and gently pulls her hand away.

But when she turns to go, he closes his arms around her, and pulls her back to his chest. He sighs, heavily, and holds her for a moment.

“There are so many things I would like to do to you in it, vhenan,” he says, lowly. “I would worship you in it. Oh, my queen. I would kneel for you, there, as you sat in only the finery of your skin, and I would make every inch of you tremble. Or watch as you pleased yourself.”

On of his hands drifts over top of hers, and she shivers a little as he presses it to the front of her crotch.

“Would you touch yourself, as I described all the things I long to do to you?” he wonders.

She draws in a breath at the bolt of warmth his voice, low and near, sends through her.

“I’m not sitting in the throne,” she tells him.

He sighs.

“No throne, then. For now.”

She inhales, and turns, and looks at him a moment. 

Alright.

No throne, but, she can still give him some of this.

She shifts her grip on him, and leads him up to the bedchamber instead. His gaze stays fixed on her as they climb the stairs, and as she strips down. It’s so intent that she slows, and he seems to appreciate the consideration; trailing her movements as she peels off each layer.

She regards him for a moment.

Then she leans back onto the bed, and spreads her legs, and gives him the view she suspects he’s angling for.

“Well then, emma lath,” she says, hands at her sides. “Describe?”

He takes a moment, and then he kneels down in front of her. Hands on her knees. She almost thinks he’s changed the plan, but he stays put; brushing his thumbs lightly against her skin. When he speaks, his voice seems to caress her all by itself; low and intent.

“I would kneel, only for you,” he tells her. “I would bring my lips to you, and coax you, and carry you through so much bliss you would forget you had ever felt anything else. I would use magic, and spread you open, and bury my will so deep in you it would always feel warm there. I would make your nerves sing,” he says, and drops his voice lower still. “I would make each touch a tribute, and each tribute would linger with all the weight of my adoration.”

That is… considerably more romantic than she’d been expecting.

He smiles at her.

She slides a hand between her legs, and lets her fingers follow the path of his voice.

“I would worship you… and then I would take you,” he says.

She dips a finger against her entrance.

“I would lift you up, and spread your legs against the armrests, and have you, again and again. Such sweet and relentless pleasure. Every time your strength gave out, I would renew you. I would fuck you into that pretty throne until the scent of you could never come out of it.”

With a shiver, she presses against herself a little more firmly, slipping her other hand up to her breast as she settles into a rhythm.

“Then I would come in you. Only then. You would think it was finished, but we would have time, my heart. As much as we pleased. I would bend you over, so that throne was the only thing holding you up, and I would take you from behind. I would take you so deeply. Such a beautiful angle that would be. Like this one. When I spent myself in you again I would admire it further; I would drink of you until I had finally wrung so much pleasure from you that you  _screamed_.”

She speeds up her motions.

“I would not be finished with you, not even then,” he promised. “I would waken your energy again, and I would use magic, vhenan, as I have not used it on you before; and you would sit on your throne and it would please you, keep you in such beautiful bliss while I watched you, just like this. While I tasted your skin and caressed your curves, and then I admit, I might, perhaps, lose interest in the throne. Or perhaps I would sit in mine, and let you ride me there. You ride me so well. I do not think we would get that far, however. I think I would have to take you on the floor instead.”

She shudders as she finally comes on her fingers, breaths ragged and skin flushed.

He stares at her a moment longer, gaze still intent. Then he takes her hand and draws her fingers into his mouth, and licks them clean.

“Will you reconsider the throne?” he asks.

“Well…” she says, with a huff of breath. “We could definitely have sex on  _some_  kind of chair.”

He chuckles.


	4. On the Ropes

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one's from two prompts, one asking for Solas to be tied up and then pull a switch on Lavellan, and the other asking for Solas to keep Lavellan on the edge for a substantial length of time.

She’s pretty sure he offers it to her as an attempt to reassure her.

Of course, she’s not foolish enough to think ropes - any ropes - are going to actually stop him. It’s his will that stops him, one way or another. But if the ropes could  _help,_  could give him something to focus on, some kind of rule to adhere to beyond her own responses and his restraint, then, well…

Needless to say, though, as an experiment on that front, it fails utterly.

She ties him carefully. He’s spread out on her bed, eyes closed, and he’s beautiful. Strangeness and all, he’s still Solas in most ways, and his pale skin sets a striking contrast with the rich colours of her sheets as he leans back, eyes closed and countenance uncommonly relaxed.

There’s probably not much chance that the rope could actually hurt him, no more than it could actually _hinder_  him. Nevertheless she reviews what she knows about tying people - prisoners more than bedroom partners, to be honest, but a lot of the rules for avoiding damage are still applicable - and carefully runs the silk rope through her hands, before winding the first knot around his wrist.

She leaves enough room for his circulation; runs her fingers gently over the veins she can see through his pale skin as she tests to make sure the tying is only tight enough to restrain, and not constrict. Two finger widths, if she remembers correctly, though she finds herself narrowing her eyes and double-checking a few times.

It’s slow going. She doesn’t make herself hurry; keeping him here longer is always a plus. She runs the rope across his skin, trails it as she secures his limbs to the posts of the bed, a maze of knots as comfortable as it is strangely beautiful. When she’s finally done she has a single length of rope left.

She winds it playfully around her own wrist, and then dips in and kisses him; meaning for it to be quick, at first. But when he groans and arches against her, his quiet passivity abruptly giving way to eagerness, she draws it out.

His mouth is very warm. She takes her time, pulling back only to lean in and taste him again, the heat building in her as she reserves her touches for almost chaste caresses; gentle, affectionate brushes of fingers down the sides of his face, and over the pulse of his throat, and behind his ears.

Her heart aches and aches with how much she loves him, how much she fears for him.

He pulls at the rope for the first time; an aborted movement of his hand, reaching towards her.

She sighs and kisses him again.

Without altering her pace, she begins to work her kisses down him. She lingers at his chest, and laves her attention there for a while, stroking her tongue over one of his nipples as she brushes the other with her thumb, and then pressing a kiss over the top of his heart. Peppering more over his ribs, and down to his stomach.

She brushes her hands across his sides. Traces the shape of his hips for a while, before moving down to his thighs, and ignoring the obvious point of interest.

When she does he jerks a little, and pulls at the ropes again, and lets out a breath.

“Vhenan,” he says.

“I am enjoying this,” she tells him.

It’s true, too; and it’s all it takes to get him to subside, though his lips curl ruefully when he does.

“Much as I wish it were otherwise, I do not, in fact, have several days to devote to this,” he tells her.

“Hmm,” she says, and carries on at the same rate, undeterred.

She runs her palms over the muscles of his thighs. They are really are fantastic thighs. When she ducks down, she puts her tongue on them, instead of anywhere more eager for the attention, and the sound of mingled frustration and surprise he makes is something to hear.

When her touch trails to his calves, he strains the ropes a little more.

She only gives the muscles there a gentle squeeze, however, before slipping back up, and sighing over his thigh again.

His hips jerk.

She slips a palm beneath him, and presses her touch between his ass and her sheets, and brushes the back of her other hand gently along his length. She leans in to press kisses, and then her tongue, to the soft skin beneath it; cups his testicles and runs the lightest touches over him, until he is dripping with impatience, and twisting toward her; not quite breaking the ropes, but certainly putting her knots to the test.

She nuzzles him. Darts her tongue out, very gently, and licks his shaft.

“ _Vhenan_ ,” he growls.

She licks him again, and then sighs, and runs another a finger up his length.

“Ar lath ma,” she says. Then she kisses his head, and takes him into her mouth.

He groans so loudly it reverberates, a little, and aborts a reflexive jerk of his hips.

She sucks him in long, languid fashion, pulling off to lick at him or trail her fingers over him instead every so often; drawing it out with gentleness, and indulging the ache of affection in herself. Whenever he begins to strain again she pulls back. She doesn’t pick up the pace or give in, even when her jaw begins to hurt, and her lips start getting sore. She pleases herself with her fingers, and sometimes pauses, resting her cheek against his hip as she works at herself; letting her own breathy little moans slip through.

Finally, he reaches a frantic moment, and she pulls off of him. She climbs up him, but rather than taking him into herself, she brushes up against him and kisses  the corner of his jaw.

And that, apparently, is a bridge too far.

He growls.

The ropes don’t just snap. They shatter, and turn to dust; a rain of glittering sparkles that make her blink in surprise, more confused then anything else at first, until he surges up and puts his arms around her and all but devours her mouth. His tongue thrusts past her lips and he drags her into his lap, and she’s certain he’s going to finish quick and rough, now, with his restraint too taxed for anything else.

Although she’s noticed, generally, that whenever she’s certain he’s going to do something in these matters, he decides he’s going to surprise her instead.

His hand closes around the single length of rope left; the one she’d wound around her own arm.

She’s a little surprised, even so, when the rope begins to move of its own accord, and he presses her hands together behind her back, and it ties them there.

Her senses are still alert, so the restriction doesn’t really bother her. The rope is soft and ties itself with the same sort of lingering care she’d applied to him, and he waits, a moment, clearly gauging her level of alarm - despite his franticness - before kissing her again.

When he pushes her down to the mattress, she’s surprised again to find him slowing.

Her breath stalls a bit as he cups her cheek, and kisses her temple, of all things; and then slowly teases his touch over her own skin. Dragging it down to fondle her breasts, and following it with his mouth. Pressing his face to her stomach, and even darting his tongue into her navel, before inching further downwards.

He pushes her into the sheets as he lowers himself to his task, sweeping his tongue across her in slow, long, even strokes; stoking up her nerves but avoiding her most sensitive places. After a time he gently works his fingers against her, and she waits for him to inevitably pick up the pace.

He doesn’t.

Time slides past and his fingers slip in and out, never more than one at a time, and his tongue comes perilously close to the places she most wants to feel it, but never  _quite_  gets there. He gradually stretches her open, until she finds her wrists straining against the rope still gently holding her in place.

It’s a far from his usual thirst to draw her to completion as many times as he physically can. Not at all what she would expect after his dramatic shattering of the ropes, and talk of limited time.

She’s honestly more baffled - and painfully aroused - than anything else when he keeps pulling back; and when he lifts her hips up, he enters her slowly, very, very slowly, with deliberate care; holding onto her so that when she tries to speed things up herself, his grip stalls her. She arches her back, straining a little, but apart from twisting slightly sideways, she can’t accomplish much.

He pushes his way in, and then eases his way out; almost all the way out, before he begins the process again. Not giving her enough friction to get anywhere, but not denying her enough to come down, either. He settles all the way into her and then does it again, long and slow, a careful drag that  _he_  refuses to let  _her_  work up into a more productive pace.

“This is how it should have been done between us the first time. Slow, so slow, and savouring. When the world is renewed, I will show you, properly.”

She doesn’t expect him to be able to keep it up much longer. He always reaches a frantic point, it seems. But his disjointed urgency, his hunger, is quieter than usual, somehow. It burns low and slow, and instead, and he seems determined on this path of his.

Then, finally, she sparks - so close to the edge, to blessed relief - and…

Doesn’t crest over.

Something catches her, and holds her there. Even when he finally picks up the pace a little, and loosens his hold on her hips enough that she can meet him, can quicken their pace, too, she stays right on the edge. He trails his fingers over her skin, and she sees a light in them, and she thinks  _that bastard is doing this on purpose,_  but the words can’t get past her lips.

She’s so close.

So, so close.

But he comes first.

He comes first, which he has never done since he took on this form, unless he was the one solely being tended to. He comes first and then toys with her with his fingers again, staying inside of her until he hardens once more; and then he begins again, the same infuriatingly long, slow drag, time forgotten as she neither crests nor crashes; can only gasp and writhe with increasing desperation.

When he kisses her again, she all but sobs into him.

“Ma vhenan,  _please.”_

_“_ You are so beautiful like this. So perfect,” he tells her.

It’s becoming too overwhelming, though. It’s robbing her of too much sense for too long, and there’s no release, no relief. She sobs again and he cups her face and finally,  _finally_ , something breaks free and she comes in a wave that is as welcome for its sheer existence as for the pleasure it brings.

She trembles.

He looks at her with breathtaking adoration.

“Perfect,” he whispers.

The rope on her wrists finally shatters into dust, and he pulls her into his arms. She kisses the nearest patch of his skin she can - his shoulder - and leans into him. He rolls his hips, still inside her, and comes again.

Then he sighs.

“Stay,” she asks, mustering the energy to tighten her grip on him. “Just stay with me. Leave the rest of it, for now.”

He sighs again.

“I have already stayed too long,” he says, and he sounds so genuinely remorseful that she can’t even bring herself to insist. She just sinks against him, instead, eyes shut, wound up in the warm feel of him until he slides her gently away.

When she opens them again, of course, he’s gone.


	5. Baths

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt requesting Dark!Lavellan and Saved!Solas bathing.

She remembers the chamber he showed her. The sanctuary. So small, all the paintings, ancient and ruined. Ruined as so many thing he treasured had been. Poor love, poor heart.

She builds him a new one.

Vast and glorious, echoing halls, recreations of images formed from her dreams, and from his.

This is where she wakes him, afterwards. In the safety and peace and silence of a place made just for him. Pools of warm and cool water flow throughout the room, dripping over silvery tiles, whirling and eddying with currents of magic to promote ease and comfort. A good place. A nice place. Not permanent, no, she will not cage him. But to wake to, she thinks, it will suffice. To rest, and to recover, calm and safe.

It will make him less unhappy, she hopes.

She draws him from sleep; lets him settle, first, by the entrance.

He jolts to consciousness. Confusion, first. Then memory. Realization, as his gaze takes in the chamber around them.

Anguish, when he looks at her. Still.

Oh.

Their surroundings did not suffice to ease him.

“What has happened?” he asks her.

She tilts her head at him. They are pulling at her, again, from their distance. Trying to break through the narrow funnel she has trapped them behind. But they all crash against the entrance, undoing one another before they reach her. Too many and too fierce, thwarting one another’s efforts as they all refuse to yield to any other. Still. She stretches over the vastness, and it takes her time - time, so strange - to remember the smallness of words.

“It’s done,” she says. “Don’t be upset. You’re alright. I won’t hurt you.”

But he is not afraid that she will hurt him. No. He is anguished because she is like he used to be; because it’s his fault. Because he took Dumat, and she told him not to, and now the darkness threads through her. Screams, sometimes. Disjointed.

She hears its echoes, still.

“Vhenan, you must get rid of them,” he says.

She would, she thinks. She wants to. It’s done, now, and she wants to. But it’s all wrong for her. How she’s done it. How she had to take them on. She can’t peel them away herself, and the only chance she’d have of doing it would be to give them over to  _him_ , and she won’t let them near him. Never again.

“I can’t. I’m sorry, I truly am. But I’m not able to,” she tells him.

“Give them back to me. I promise, I will destroy them. Give them to me and I will destroy them all,” he tells her, moving closer. Anguish, still, and longing, and only the faintest hope.

She doesn’t want to dash it.

“Maybe some day,” she lies.

He stops directly before her. He looks into her eyes, and misses their old appearance. She knows what that’s like. But his eyes are the right colour again, and it makes her smile. Makes her reach back for him, carefully,  _carefully_ , with hands that look almost like her own should.

“I still love you,” she tells him.

He shakes.

He loves her, too. And it hurts.

It’s all wrong for him. Poor heart. So hard, to think everything is his fault; every tragedy weighs down upon his shoulders. She thought about lifting it away, but she is not so delicate with memories yet; and he wouldn’t want her to take them, she doesn’t think. He would say no, if she asked, and those are things she must ask him for.

She could take everything. Every part of him. Sweep him to dust with a thought, and that frightens her. He is so precious, and so fragile. She could absorb him into herself, too, but that’s not what she wants. That’s all wrong. She took the others to keep them  _away_  from him. If she takes him, too, it will all be for naught.

Something seeps through the narrow funnel of the prison; screams, shrieks, and she moves back. Screams at it in return, until the tendril recedes. She pulls back and keeps it away from her heart. Barely an instant, but its enough to wrench at her control, and her skin cracks; black blood seeps from where it splits.

She shakes with the force of it all.

When it subsides, she straightens, and closes the wounds.

Horror, anguish, fear, worry, guilt; all flood the peaceful chamber, and Solas stares at her in pain.  _It is destroying you_ , he thinks.

“It is alright, I am alright,” she tells him.

“Nothing in this is right, not in any sense,” he replies.

But he moves towards her, and smooths gentle touches over wounds that are no longer there. She stares at the flecks of black blood that dry on his fingertips, and then takes him - carefully - by the hand, and leads him towards the nearest pool. Water. Water will ease it; water is like it was before.

He looks so beautiful in the pool. Fragile skin, illuminated perfectly by the soft light of the place. She built it for him and she did well. He looks at the paintings and murals, and feels only sorrow, though. No comfort in the familiarity. No joy. No ease.

What else could ease him?

She lets the water wash away the blood. Blood is distressing; that might help. Yes. And then she moves towards him, and touches his skin. Soft, soft touches. This comforted him before, when he was like her; and she finds its easier, with her hands on his skin, to feel small again. To move further from the vastness.

His sorrow doesn’t ease. Her touch isn’t enough.

She soothes the water over him. Coaxes him down near one of the benches by the eddies, and lets the current wash against him. Wash away the pain.

“Please. Please do not be pained, emma lath,” she asks him. “It’s alright, see? I’m still here, and I still love you. I do.”

He shakes, and slumps against her; and he weeps into the waters. His hands rest upon her. There’s no cure for his sorrow, it seems. She holds him in return as it shakes out of him, and tries to soothe. Whispers promises against his skin. Would he like his throne back? She could do that. She could build him a palace, or a temple for people to worship him at. Or, no, that wasn’t really what _he_  wanted, was it? 

He can still do as he pleases, either way. He isn’t her prisoner. If he wishes for something, he need only ask, and she will grant it to him.

“Give them back to me,” he asks her.

“I cannot. It would harm you,” she replies.

“It is harming  _you_ , and that is far worse,” he says, firmly. Angrily. But when he pulls back, his expression is fallen. Gentle. When he touches her face, it is as if  _she_  is the fragile one.

His fingers shake.

“Shhh,” she tells him, and presses his hand more firmly to her. She kisses his palm. “I fixed it. I saved you. Mine, my triumph,” she whispers. “My heart.”

She pulls him closer, and a shiver of something not quite anguish bleeds through the fog of his emotions as her thigh slips between his legs.

Oh.

She can give him this; certainly. Perhaps it might offer some relief.

And it feels so grounding, still, to touch him. It would feel even better, she thinks, to have him inside of her. 

She shifts, and drags her touch lower. Leans forward to press a kiss to the base of his neck, and then further kisses upwards. Soft. So soft, and so warm. His throat bobs as he swallows. He wonders if it would help her. She thinks it would help them both. Hopes it.

“Should I stop?” she asks, though. She is so strong. All he has is his will, and if she takes that from him, she takes everything from him.

He considers it. But he’s drawn in, too. They’re always drawn to one another.

“No,” he finally says.

She moves upwards, and kisses him. Gently, carefully, but it is so satisfying to do it. To taste his mouth. To delve in, and drink him up. His heart speeds and he wishes, he wants her to be herself. Just herself. He wants to undo it. He wants this to be the sanctuary, from before. He wants to take the souls into himself and die; just die, so he will not ruin things any further.

So he will not hurt her anymore.

But if he dies, they both know, it will hurt her, too.

He cannot win.

“I won,” she tells him. “I fixed it. I will fix all your mistakes for you, ma vhenan. You see? No more grief.”

“What did you do?” he asks, bleakly.

“I’ll show you later. Don’t worry; it will all be better now. I promise.”

He doesn’t believe her, not even in the slightest.

She sighs, and runs her hands over him again. Reaches for him, and smooths her touch across his length. He is soft there, too, especially in the water. But as she runs her fingers over him his interest gradually grows, and he hardens. She brushes her thumb across his head, and slips her palm down to cup him. Wraps her arm around his back, and coaxes the thread of arousal louder; stronger. Lets him feel her better. Encourages his body to provide a stronger distraction. He starts to relax, a little. Starts to enjoy it.

A bolt of self-loathing shoots through him.

She stops.

“No,” she says. She moves her hand back up, and cradles his cheek, and kisses him; gentle, but then she goes too sharp and her nails draw blood instead. He doesn’t flinch; she still seals over the wound, kissing apologies across it. “No, Solas. You are a wonder. You are so strong; you have endured so much. What is done is done, but don’t despair of yourself. Please.”

“I have brought ruin to everything I ever loved,” he tells her.

“I chose this,” she tells him, stepping back a little. “My victory, and my love.”

He is weeping again when she brushes his face, and she croons at him, and draws him close once more. Runs the water over him again, and waits for his turmoil to settle into, at the very least, exhaustion. She murmurs her adoration into him. Praise and forgiveness. She promises him no more gifts; she remembers, now. That doesn’t help. Instead she tries, focuses, works on making herself more of what she should be.

Nothing to be done for her own eyes. But after a time he moves his own touch across her. Casts water gently over her, as if it might wash away the other souls she has woven into herself. He wishes it would. He wishes he had power enough to take them back from her; and then he feels another rush of self-loathing. It was his desire for power to fix things that brought them here.

She curls a hand around his length again.

“Do not think of it. It’s the past, and done is done,” she says.

“The past,” he whispers. There is an unexpected spark of hope in him, then. A thought; but he is swift enough to grapple it away before she can grasp it.

She furrows her brow at him.

Before she can ask, though, he leans forward and kisses her of his own volition. He clutches her close, and suddenly fierce. A surge of determination, of love, of strange and quiet resolve.

He has been inspired.

He is planning something.

But he is no longer in so much anguish; and so she will let him. It’s good enough, for now. She returns his kiss, and wraps herself around him. Moves his erection towards her entrance; but he stops her. Slides his fingers over her instead. Wonders why she would take him so unprepared; why she would hurt herself on him.

It saddens him. Unnerves him.

“I am not soft anymore,” she tells him, gently. But his fingers feel nice. They slip into her and it is him, and he is inside her, and this is what she wants. She kisses him again. Murmurs her approval, and presses forward, taking his touch deeper. Her arousal burns slow. Less the igniting of sparks, and more the hunger for  _him_ , in and of himself.

He burns for her, too, and so she pulls his hand away, and presses it back against the side of the bath behind him, and angles their hips together once more. She takes him fully. Grips him tight, and makes him shudder with sensation. He is a solid, stretching weight in her. Smooth skin glistening in the water. They are connected, and she feels vivid. She feels crushed back into herself.

She rocks against him.

He moves his hands to her back, and kisses her neck.

“Ma vhenan,” he says, and closes his eyes. And loves her, so very much.

She rocks against him. Presses her lips to his, hungrily, and lingers a moment with him inside of her. Against her. So perfect, until his hips begin to jerk and the stillness grows uncomfortable for him. Then she moves again, more rapidly.

She drags him to completion. It’s not enough for her, but he uses his fingers once more. Dips down below the water, and laves his tongue across her. Tires, a little, and she brings him back up and finishes it herself, pressed against him. He is sated, but he does not feel satisfied.

The intensity of determination still burns off the edges of his despair.

She curls her fingers across his jaw.

“Just what are you planning?” she asks him.

“To save you, of course,” he tells her.

She lets out a long breath, and kisses the side of his mouth. There is no saving her. But if it gives him hope, she will not take it.

The spark of it in him burns brighter, and she’s glad.


	6. Heat

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Somebody who shall remain unnamed mentioned an interest in dom!Solas and sniffing/licking/biting/etc, and someone else wanted mating cycles and heat, so I’ve combined them because, well, fairly complimentary there.
> 
> So here, have some more dark!Solas TDWH AU! Please note - this is also AU of that AU and the tropes utilized herein shouldn’t be considered, uh, ‘canon’ for that verse, and will not influence any of the plotlines contained in it nor, in all likelihood, appear outside of this porn-y oneshot. Or maybe other, similar porn-y oneshots if people are interested.
> 
> …Yes. I AU’d again.
> 
> Warnings for… well, all the TDWH AU usual stuff, plus everything I just mentioned.

 

 

It happens when Solas leaves and doesn’t really come back for several days.

She’s a little bit surprised. They’ve been going at it regularly enough that she doesn’t really expect to miss the  _sex_ , but then again… maybe she just got used to it.

Either way, she wakes up bright and early on the third day of his absence and finds that she is ridiculously,  _ridiculously_  horny. Twisting in the sheets, even, with sweat pooling between her breasts and her own wetness slick between her thighs. Almost before she’s even really conscious, she slides her hand down and begins to frantically try and relieve the ache there.

She comes quickly; an explosion of sparks that leaves her panting and wondering what, exactly, _that_  was. And where it had come from. Her dreams had been of little more than licking flames and closed doors; nothing arousing at all.

_Getting a little weird here,_  she thinks. But that’s been true for a while. So she pulls herself out of the bed, finds a water basin and cleans up, and decides to just put it behind her. There’s a window in the War Room she thinks she might be able to open; a corner that doesn’t seem quite as tightly secured as all the rest.

She makes it halfway there before the heat starts building up in her again.

Which is not normally something that the creepy throne room provokes in her. But she finds herself thinking of Solas, sitting there, bare. Of his cock between her lips, flushed with arousal, and before she can really think of it one of her hands is sliding down towards herself again.

She catches herself, and shakes it off.

“Are you coming back soon?” she nevertheless asks, tearing her gaze away from the throne - which, she reminds herself, is creepy.

“Tomorrow, perhaps. There are matters requiring my attention,” Solas replies. He sounds just a tiny bit distracted.

With an internal shrug at herself, she squares her shoulders, and presses on to the War Room.

An hour later she’s lying on her back, with her hand down her pants. Cursing.

This is strange.

This is very,  _very_  strange.

But it’s not until the third time it happens - back in the damn throne room again - that she considers that he might be doing this to her on purpose. Or that  _something_ , at least, has gone incredibly awry.

“Are you doing this?” she asks, heading back to the bedchamber and stripping down to change out her smalls.

“Doing…? Oh.”

On the ‘oh’, Solas’ voice sucks in a sharp breath, and then goes suddenly silent.

“Oh…?” she asks. She’s alright for now, still coming down off of her last orgasm, but already she can feel the prickles of another wave - and that’s the only way she can think to describe them; waves - coming up on her again.

“I did not consider that you would be affected so soon,” Solas replies.

“Well that sounds promising,” she says. “Affected by  _what?_ I feel like a Desire Demon slipped in while no one was paying attention.”

Apparently, that isn’t a good implication to make.

He growls. Low, and uncommonly vicious, and it makes her shudder.

“I would rend it apart for the presumption.”

She lets out a heavy breath, considers her options, and just climbs, naked, back onto the bed.

“If that isn’t what actually happened, I’d like to know the truth, then,” she prompts.

Another long pause.

“You are… cycling somewhat more strongly than usual,” Solas finally tells her. He sounds a bit strained, now. “A great deal more strongly, in fact. Do not worry. I will be there as soon as I am able.”

“Could we  _stop_  it?” she asks. He’s managed to make her not require either food or drink, after all. Stopping whatever awful thing has happened now doesn’t seem like it would be a bridge too far to cross.

But apparently, it is.

“Your cycle is tied to mine,” he says. “I fear that is one thing that is not… quite within my purview to control. Not without side effects which would be even more unpleasant, by far.”

The sound of his voice - even aside from the content of his words - slides down her, and she shivers, and yes, it’s another wave of arousal. Building up more quickly and, she’s kind of amazed to realize, even more potently than before. She shifts back, and reaches for herself again.

“Great,” she says, but the word comes out a little broken.

She works herself to completion again; but she barely gets a breather before she feels it building up once more.

“I think it’s getting worse,” she says.

“It will. The drive will strengthen until it reaches peak, and then wane again,” Solas tells her, strained again.

His voice.

His  _voice_.

She lets out a breath - a pant - and considers that maybe she should stop talking to him. It seems to be making the, uh,  _severity_  of it stronger. Her fingers dip down into herself and she sucks in a breath, clutching her breast with her other hand. The bedsheets feel very cool beneath her flushed skin.

She comes again.

It doesn’t let up so much this time, though.

With a curse she retracts her hand and turns her head towards the pillow.

A few minutes later she’s squeezing her thighs together, slick and sweating, working to try and get some relief with just enough cognition to give her hand a break. If this is going to last for a while, she needs to pace herself. But her body doesn’t want to pace itself. 

What she wants, very distinctly, is Solas.

The whole process is unsettling. But on balance, even without the obvious motive for her desire, she thinks it would be easier if she wasn’t alone. On a number of levels. If she’s going to endure a period of ridiculous over-arousal, at least her near-tireless and immortal lover can come in handy.

“Solas,” she calls.

“I will be there, vhenan, I swear it,” he replies.

Solas.

The heat builds and fogs her mind, and she finds herself, irrationally, wondering if he’s staying away on purpose. If he doesn’t want her anymore. If he’s changed his mind, just like he did before. It doesn’t matter that she knows better. Something in her is reaching for him, so strongly, but he isn’t with her, and this new and strange instinct in her insists that is  _disastrous_.

She presses her hips down and touches herself again, tries to clear some of the fog and irrationality away.

He said he would come to her.

But she’s reaching and reaching and he isn’t  _there_.

Until, quite suddenly, he is.

There’s a whiff of smoke, black and ashen, and he’s  _covered_  in blood. The sight of it is enough to shake her mind loose from the heat, for a few seconds. To make her worry. Is he hurt? His armour is different than usual, all riddled with tremendous, jagged edges, and his skin is flushed. Expression locked in terrible fury; but that shifts into something else when he looks at her.

His nostrils flare.

He is blood-soaked and terrifying and covered in spikes, and she still has to stop herself from lunging off the bed towards him.

Not that she needs to, because he’s already moving towards her instead, reaching for her and then halting at the sight of his own arm. The air shudders, and he shakes his head a little, and the armour and blood vanish. He’s erect and bare and flushed with arousal of his own. There’s no stopping her, then. She surges up to kiss him.

He wraps her in his arms and all but devours her in return; sharp teeth pressing on her lips but he is solid and  _there_ , he’s there, he’s decided to come and even as she tries to remind herself that it’s all so complicated now, her most profound sense beneath the visceral  _want_  of it all is one of reassurance.

When their lips part, he presses his nose to her temple, and inhales deeply. She ruts up against his thigh, dragging herself across his skin, and reaches for him, but as soon as her touch grazes over his length he drags her down onto the bed.

He looks at her a moment with his dark, inscrutable eyes, panting and ragged himself. She twists against him as he locks her in his arms. As he leans down and kisses the side of her neck. Licks her, and drags his tongue lower, tasting the sweat off of her skin.

She grinds against him and he doesn’t even do much, not really, but she still comes again, white stars and brilliant flares of pleasure, and she’s afraid the fire is going to consume her completely. That she’s losing her mind.

“I have you,” he says. “I have you, vhenan.”

She burrows against him and he curls around her, covering her with himself and that somehow eases things, and yet ignites them in other ways. Her flesh aches, fired with want and over-sensitivity, and when he pulls back a little and her nipples brush his chest it’s like lightning; where his lips touch hers, it’s much the same. 

He smells so good. She’s never thought he’s smelled so good before.

He dips down again and lines himself up with her, and thrusts inwards. And as she arches back, he bites down on the joint of her neck, and for some reason, that feels almost as right as having him in her. All the fire in her swells and his hips snap, and he takes her at a fierce pace. Frantic. She can’t last long again, coming and clenching around him as he licks at her wound - but doesn’t heal it, as usual.

She’s come to expect him to get jagged like this, sometimes, but he seems as undone as she is; and she wonders, with what little is left of her for wondering, how her cycle being tied to him has manifested itself. In the brief window afforded by her release, she has enough sense to guess that this is going to be to intense. Even more than it already is.

Then his thrusts hit a certain angle and she doesn’t think of much of anything.

When he finally comes, shuddering, unexpectedly abrupt, he all but collapses on her. Kisses her jaw. Drags his lips up to her ear, and gently grazes her skin with his teeth.

She wishes that could be the end of it; that they could come down, now, properly and discuss things. But she’s building up again, her hips already twisting into him, and he’s not far behind. Her rather muddled efforts to sit up are thwarted thoroughly by his arms, and when she squirms again, he lets loose a low, rumbling sound; somewhere trapped between a purr and a growl.

“Solas?” she asks.

“Got you,” he says, and bucks into her anew.

They’re lost once more, tangled in their bodies’ demands, but when her senses return, it’s enough for her to feel the disorientation beyond the fog of heat. She is lit with too much feeling; the pleasure is also painful, and her heart is hammering, and under any other circumstances she’d probably be afraid of what this senselessness might do to him. Of what her own body is doing to her. But… but she can’t even really get there, past the rush of  _want_ , and that’s its own kind of unnerving.

He takes her face in his hands, eyes closed, and presses their foreheads together.

“Breathe,” he advises.

His voice is low and rough, and familiar. Him. Her stomach unclenches a little.

“How long?” she asks him. ‘Does this last for?’ is left unsaid, but he gathers it anyway. Unsurprisingly.

“It could be a few days,” he admits.

Days.

Plural.

She clings with ridiculous optimism to the ‘could’ part of that statement, but then he rocks into her again and she forgets what ‘days’ even are. His thrusts pick up momentum until she’s dragging across the sheets, and the frame is creaking. She can’t tell where she is within this wave anymore; it all burns the same, high and bright, until finally,  _finally_ , she crashes so fiercely she actually screams, and some clarity manages to sink in again.

Her throat is sore.

_Everything_  is sore, in fact.

The wash of magic over her is welcome; though it doesn’t do anything to help with the banked arousal still threatening to build up again.

Solas regards her a moment, and then the temperature around them drops. The cool air feels like such a relief against her skin; in her lungs. It doesn’t chase the heat away, not completely, but it eases the relentless edge of it. She breaths it in as Solas gives her a little more space; shifting around to spoon her instead of blanket her. 

“You are bearing it well. You will be fine,” he promises her.

“You?” she asks, between cold, heavy breaths. It’s starting to warm up again. Probably herself, and not the air, she thinks. If the solution to this was as simple as a cold shower, she’s pretty sure he would have mentioned it.

“I will also be fine,” he promises.

His hips twitch.

But then he stiffens, and curses.

“Solas?” she asks.

“I must - I - this is  _terrible_  timing,” he snarls. “Damn them, damn every last one of them! I will rend them to pieces!”

She tries to turn to him, alarmed by his abrupt change in mood; but his arms are too tight around her, until suddenly he lets go and moves away. It’s jarring. She reaches for him, turns with some disorientation, but he’s off of the bed and cursing again.

“I am sorry; you must endure without me for a time. I will be as swift as I can,” he says. Or snarls, more like. Spitting out the words as if he despises them. As if he wants to kill them. Before she can even get out a question, then, the air whirls around him, and snaps with enough force for her to really feel it, and he’s gone.

He’s gone.

It’s not over, but he’s left her.

She sucks in a deep breath.

Alright.

Clearly something happened. He didn’t seem  _happy_  to leave her, that was for sure. And he promised to be swift. Logically, something very, very big must be going on. Something very big in his world-ending-and-remaking plans. He hasn’t really left her, he’s just been further delayed. By doing something she hates.

She can handle this.

Damn it all, she can  _handle_  being frighteningly horny and alone.

Leaning back, she pointedly avoids touching herself, and tries to think of very unappealing things. Darkspawn. Darkspawn are unappealing. Fallow Mire, that would be a difficult place to get worked up in. Nugs. Nugs are not sexy. Corypheus. Just… Corypheus.

It seems to help, for a little while, but inevitably she starts creeping upwards again and her focus frays. And then she finds she has trouble picturing anything except for freckled skin and long fingers, and bright eyes. And then dark eyes. Her longing burns all the more sharply, and she gives up and reaches for herself.

She tries shifting positions, angling her legs differently. It helps a little, but she still works until both her hands are tired and doesn’t seem to make anything that could be described as progress. She comes, but she doesn’t come down again afterwards. She grinds against the bed, tries to rest and feels like she’s trying to talk the ocean into receding. Eventually she ends up attempting to get some friction off of the bed post, desperate and breathless and burning beyond reason, and tumbles off and lands on the floor.

The floor is freezing cold.

She presses her skin into it and lays there awhile, spread out, face-down and shuddering. The shock of it melts some clarity back into her brain.

“Solas?” she calls.

No answer.

The cold lessens and she lets out a heavy breath, and soon enough it’s all she can do to press tired fingers into her aching, over-sensitive flesh, and hope it’s been days. It  _feels_  like it’s been days. She has the unnerving suspicion that it’s only been hours at best, though.

When the air breaks again, she barely has time to notice it. There’s a sharp hiss, and then rapid footsteps vibrating through the floorboards and somehow even the  _footsteps_  tremble through her with vivid eroticism. She turns her head, spies ‘black’ and ‘spiked’ and little else before cold gauntlets grip her hips and pull her upwards, and hot flesh thrusts deep into her.

She cries out, a fierce mixture of relief and surprise and a sharp bolt of pleasure.

The backs of her legs press against freezing hard plating, and something sharp scrapes across her thigh. He’s only pulled himself out and not undressed at all. Her arms tremble too much for her to lift herself, and only his grip on her keeps her from falling straight back down. Even so, she finds herself trying her best to grind closer to him. Not that it does much; he moves her himself, pressing her flush against him as he delves in deep. Her breasts smack against the floor, and she curls her arms under her head to try and brace herself a little higher.

There’s no finesse. He’s near-senseless and so is she, flesh in her and armour against her, rapid and desperate.  He doesn’t speak. Just lets out a few ragged groans and thrusts in and out of her. 

She comes, she thinks, but still doesn’t come down. Dizzy and tired and dragging back and forth in his grasp. The rhythm of him inside of her is the easiest thing to focus on. It satisfies her, even as she burns through this wave that refuses to crash.

Then finally,  _finally,_  she clenches around him, and he spills inside of her, and the heat recedes a little.  

The breath floods out of her all at once.

He fumbles with her, briefly, then. The press of his armour vanishes, and she feels skin instead. A tongue laves across her wounded thigh; magic follows, closing it. She tries to turn towards him, but it’s a monumental effort; he scoops her up instead, and breathes apologies against her brow.

“S’alright,” she mumbles. She gets it; she’s in the same state, and all things considered, she’s not objecting.

He kisses her softly, though. Deeply. She feels exhausted, and still aroused as he curls onto the bed with her and essentially covers her with himself again, murmuring reassurances that seem to be as much for him as for her. She kisses the part of him she can most easily reach - throat - and then, on strange impulse, closes her teeth gently over the skin there.

He stills.

She lets him go, and licks the same spot. It makes him shiver.

“Stay,” she rasps.

He swallows.

“Yes, I can stay now,” he tells her, and squeezes her tight.

With him here this whole disaster seems imminently more survivable. 

_Good_ , she thinks. 

Good.


	7. Transformation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so some explanation for this one!  
> I got prompted to do smutty TDWH fic where everything basically goes according to Solas’ plans. And I’m working on that one.
> 
> But while I was working on it, this happened. This veers off slightly sideways from intentions. There is no smut, and things do not go according to Solas’ plans.
> 
> I’m sharing it in hopes of cheering up one of my readers who is having a rough time (and because I’m not sure if I’ll be able to finish the smutty/darker version tonight, because a friend of mine is also having a rough time so I want to get a gift fic done for her, if I can.)
> 
> So, yes. For everyone who might be having a tough time, for whatever reason - hope this helps!

The first thing he does, when it is done; when the light that comes streaming into Skyhold is steady and strong, is keep his promise.

He gets rid of Dumat.

It’s a ball of energy; silvery instead of dark. She thinks it should look more like dripping tar, but remembers what it looked like when he first took it into himself, and it’s the same. Of course, it could be  _another_  soul, she supposes; but when he brings the brunt of his power to bear, and rends it before her eyes, the change in him is distinct.

He lets out a heavy breath.

“That was… he was worse than I realized,” he admits.

A bold declaration, considering how bad he had finally realized it  _was._

He’s still not back to normal, she doesn’t think. There are too many other souls in him, still so much power, so much strangeness. But he seems less sharp, somehow. Not so tense and strained, or stretched so thin, and when he looks at her the dark, deep well of his eyes reminds her less of the endless pit of the void, and more of a starry night sky.

He smiles.

“Still reading my mind?” she asks him.

“Yes,” he admits. “Though I have the cure for that, ma vhenan.”

She hesitates.

The air around Skyhold has changed. The barrier he put up is fading. Falling away, like rain-soaked stone drying in the sun, and she feels a deep pang of loss for the world. For all thought of life as she once knew it, and for all the things he has destroyed to make a blank canvas for the next stage.

“Not entirely blank,” he murmurs. “But I am sorry, for what had to be done.”

He reaches towards her, hand outstretched in request. In invitation.

She allows herself one more moment. One more lament for all of her failures.

Then she reaches back, and slips her left palm into his right.

He curls his fingers around her.

“It will be alright,” he promises her.

The anchor surges, then. Not all at once. It’s a slow trickle of energy that builds up and wraps around her. Starts from her palm and spreads through her arm, and rests across her shoulders, warming as it grows and sinks into her breastbone, and fills up her heart.

It bursts and flares, and for a second it’s so  _vast_. Not the same vastness as the glimpse of worlds between the crossroads, or the terror of almost being pulled in by Dumat; more like the vastness she’d felt the first time she’d been called ‘Inquisitor’. The first time power had fallen over her shoulders, and she had been forced to learn whether she could carry the strain, or if she would buckle beneath it instead.

When it passes, it’s followed by a wash of pain. Nerves on fire. She opens her mouth and cries out, but it’s gone almost as soon as it begins. Her body tingles with the echoes of it. Deep in her bones.

After those subside, she feels light.

Light like when you have been carrying something extremely heavy for a very long time, and then you put it down, and suddenly it’s as if your arms want to drift up and float away. Light, like the world is air and dust; light as not even the Fade could manage to make anyone feel.

She blinks, and sees colours more vividly than before. Breathes, and tastes the air differently in her lungs. Grips Solas’ hand, and feels a pulse from him; a thread both familiar and new. Impressions of sentiment, of connection, and concern.

“Oh,” she says.

She turns to see him staring at her, expression twisted in a moment of uncertainty.

“I’m alright,” she tells him, and knows it’s true.

She’s different; but she’s still herself.

Joy.

Success.

Pride.

She looks over to him, and blinks. His feelings. He uses his hold on her hand to draw her close, and hold her. Arms around her, tight, relief and then just…

Love.

At first she thinks it’s hers, because it feels so much the same. It washes over her and steals her breath, makes her heart stall, burns itself into her. Gentle with affection, fierce with desire, aching with worry, and abiding, as if nothing could ever really hope to sweep it away. But it’s not hers she’s feeling. Not right now.

A single, overwhelmed breath escapes her. She buries her face against his neck as her eyes burn.

“Me too,” she whispers.

“I know, vhenan. I could feel it,” he says, gently.

They stand for a moment. Or more than a moment, maybe, she thinks. Time treads differently, and her feelings… they aren’t  _stronger,_ she doesn’t think, but they pull at her in new ways. Like more of her is wrapped up in them, maybe. Like they want to draw her in, keep her there, hold her focus for longer.

It’s a little frightening.

“There will be no harm in it,” Solas tells her. “You will adjust, and I will help you. And you can keep me out now. If you wish to. Here, let me show you.”

He pulls slightly away from her, and takes both of her hands up in his. Presses kisses to the backs of her knuckles, and then she feels something… slide into place. Like an invisible wall. Or, no, that’s not really right. Like a withdrawal, back into himself.

She blinks, and realizes she can’t feel him anymore.

“Just like that,” he says.

She wants to ask ‘like what’, because she knows he did  _something_  but how she is supposed to…? But then it sort of… fits together. Like watching someone else tie a knot. She’s reaching out to him, she realizes; calling for him. It’s so blatant now she’s almost embarrassed about it.

He chuckles.

“I have never objected in the slightest,” he says.

Letting out a breath, she closes her eyes, and tries to mimic him. He slides his fingers through her own, and she pulls back. Pulls in. Stops reaching for him so blatantly. Retracts the invisible arm she hadn’t realized was perpetually stretched in his direction.

“Good,” he says. Though he looks a little wistful about it.

She regards him for a moment, and wonders if it works in reverse.

In an experimental rush, she floods him with all the force of affection she can muster.

His eyes go wide.

“Did I do that ri-”

She cuts off as something sweeps over her in return. A wave, so strong, of fierce warmth and longing and admiration, of regret and of joy, and her breath stops and the world is bright, and it’s so strong she staggers into it. Doesn’t even realize that they’re kissing until some of the heady rush subsides and she comes back from it to find that their lips are sealed together. Her arms are wound around his neck, and his tongue is in her mouth.

It feels different, on so many levels. She feels  _him_  on so many levels. Not just flesh against flesh, not even just feelings racing back and forth, sinking into one another and creating something strange - something unique unto itself - no, not even just that. But she doesn’t quite have the words for it. He is… he is Solas.

And she loves Solas, very much.

And Solas loves her very much, too; even tangled, still, in the threads of other souls.

They kiss for a long time.

It doesn’t feel like a long time, though. It doesn’t feel like any time. It feels like time doesn’t matter. Like the need to move on to other things is a distant idea; a concept to be considered or disregarded with the same validity either way. She could kiss him forever. Or, if not quite that, then at least for a very long time. Her lips won’t tire and her mind won’t easily bore, not any longer.

It’s a little frightening, just how different  _everything_  is.

Solas slowly pulls his lips back from her own.

“Not so different,” he tells her. “It is has always been there. You can just see it, now.”

_This has always been between us,_  he thinks, and she sees it the way that he sees it. When she was little more than a spirit, thrust into his life by the most peculiar twist of fate. And he was not alone, anymore. That would have been enough. But she offered him more, still. More than companionship. More than the mystery. A calamitous accident bound them together, and his other self set her free, and then she came to him, and granted him  _connection_.

They have woven themselves into one another, now.

She reaches for the latches of his armour, and piece by piece, begins to pull it away.

It’s not a frantic scrambling. There is no great lust in her, at the moment. She takes the armour from him, the sharp edges and hard surfaces, because that isn’t him. Slowly, carefully, she peels off the excess. Then she smooths her hands over the fabric of his tunic beneath it. Finds that the threads melt away at the urging of her touch; but she abandons this method in short order, and strips him bare by hand, leaving him only in soft breeches and boots before he finally stills her.

She looks at him, and it all trembles through her.

_I love you. I want you to be safe. I want you to be happy. I want you, only you. You deserve peace, you deserve comfort. Your soul is precious, and whatever you have done I would rescue you from this fate. Let me._

_Let me._

He leans into her, and puts his arms around her. His lips brush her temple.

_Yes,_  he thinks.  _I will let you._

To her astonishment, then, it all breaks from him. Like the armour she peeled away. The web of souls, the weight, the sickly power chained to him, bursts forth and roars out. As the least pieces of Skyhold’s barrier fall, the air roars, and magic strikes the world like a match.

He crumples.

She catches him.

The sound that escapes her is desperate and broken, relieved and disbelieving and awe-struck. She can feel him. Just him, just himself, battered and bruised and exhausted, but alone. Her heart. He sucks in ragged breaths, trembling around the tattered pieces of himself.

Above them the air storms and trembles as the souls are dispersed. Once again, Skyhold is an island of safety. But with the barrier gone, it is a much poorer one, now. She curls over Solas, shielding him, and when she extends her hand the air shields him, too. Glimmering green, rippling like the light of rifts. She draws him with her back inside; shuts the great doors, and with a wave of her hand tears down the waiting thrones.

He is so hurt. Such a long fight. So many wounds. His thoughts are disjointed, incoherent. His emotions a jumble. But when she bolsters him, he leans on her in trust. She tries to radiate the right feelings at him. It’s clumsily done, she thinks, but it must work at least a little, because by the time she gets him into the basement, the fear and confusion in him have lessened.

The basement is clean, relatively empty, devoid of most decoration. A fair place to wait out whatever has just been unleashed. She shoves a rug up against one of the walls, and leans against it, and leans Solas against her.

She can  _feel_  it.

Himself, and her, and the places where they thread together. Just, gently entwined. She thinks those threads could be plucked apart from one another, if it came to it. But the very thought of even trying… no. She wants them there. So does he, if the way his jumbled thoughts seem to brush at them is any indication; turning them over more as if he’s checking to make sure they’re all still there, than as if he is distressed by an unwanted intrusion.

When at last he seems at least somewhat satisfied, and in possession of yet more of his equilibrium, he falls asleep.

She feels his dreams, like whispers, all around them.

She keeps his mind close and quiet, away from the storm as he rests.

As he  _rests._

Her relief is so profound - he’s sleeping, actually sleeping, she’s holding him while he sleeps - that tears slip from her eyes. She holds onto him as he heals by bits and pieces. Slowly. Painfully slowly, but they have time, now, it seems. She feels like she could wait however long it took, and never move. Just let time trickle past and carry the edge of his pain away with it.

She’s different from how she was; yet not truly  _infinite._ However she feels, as time drags on she grows tired, too. She shifts, and rearranges him. She falls into a meditative state somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, and almost worries she might get lost there, until she follows the light of their shared connection back; like beacons in the dark.

It is a long while, still, before he wakes.

He almost rouses a few times before it. Still too uneasy, disoriented. Finally, when he opens his eyes, he feels settled. Far from completely healed, but no longer hurting in quite so many ways. He opens his eyes and looks up at her from where she has him lying in her lap.

_Love._

He reaches for her, and touches her cheek.

“Welcome back,” she says, with a smile.

One of her tears tracks down his palm.

“Vhenan,” he replies.


	8. Heat, Solas POV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Thank you for writing these fills. The latest TDWH NSFW AU was so good. In the main TDWH AU, Lavellan thinks she isn't much of a seductress, and Solas isn't the kind of guy who can be beguiled into staying with sex anyway. So here's a nsfw prompt/minifill suggestion, if you want it: Lavellan inadvertently keeps Solas locked down for however long the heat cycle lasts? Like he wants to tear away but he absolutely can't find it in himself to? Maybe something from his PoV?

This truly is terrible timing.

He has only himself to blame for it. He had assumed, given her current state, that she would be spared some of these… complications. He had not thought to investigate the matter thoroughly. His own distractions had been too numerous, and now he is paying the price of his neglect.

They both are.

She is afraid of the fog in her mind, and he can offer her very little to help banish it.

His task is unfinished, and demands his attention; but she needs him. Each moment he is gone from her he feels her reaching out to him. He feels her primal fear that she has been abandoned. Her desire for his presence; physical, but even more compellingly, her need for  _him_  to be there. Not just to satisfy the demands her body is making, but to ease her fright. 

To comfort her.

Duty draws him to his task, and yet. He has disappointed her so many times, now. Terrified her and failed her. Kept her safe, but trapped, and stifled.

He cannot fail her in this.

He is calling out for her, too. They are entwined through this unexpected ordeal. He cannot deny her, or himself, or their connection. The others press in at him, but the fires burn them back. Make him more difficult to reach. He is more himself than he has been in ages, even as his senses fail him, and his own furious need tramples his better judgement.

He flies through his battles. Tears apart the beasts that oppose him, and stains the earth with their blood. Obliterates them from a distance. He had thought to use more finesse for this, to investigate more thoroughly, but there is no time for delicacy. They have drawn him away, and their every opposition of him stokes the flames of his ire as it delays his return to her.

Some escape.

He struggles to keep his wits. To assess the matter.

Very likely, he should pursue them. They could cause trouble at a later date. Particularly if they join with some of the snakes and vermin still scurrying in opposition to him. But she is calling, calling. He has been gone so long. She is burning up all alone, and he is on fire, too. His instincts are screaming that every minute he is gone from her, he is failing her. She is vulnerable. Interlopers could find her - no matter how unlikely that is, no matter how secure he has made things, if he is not  _there_ , there is still the chance that something could break in before he returned. Something could find her, like that. Delirious and weakened. Unable to defend herself.

She is calling for him.

He turns from the fleeing wretches, and answers.

He tears across the world, howling rather than roaring, and when he falls through to her again, he is struck with alarm.

The bed is empty.

_No!_

His first, irrational, thought is that she has been taken. Stolen by some enemy that he will utterly destroy in repayment. But no, no, there is no breach to his wards. She has fallen off, he realizes. Pressed upon the floor, seeking relief from the oppressive heat. Her body spread out, burning and ready. More than ready. Aching for him.

The scent of her is so thick upon the air he is dizzy with it. He tries to pull back, but there is no hope for success. Leaving was unavoidable, but also unwise and unforgivable; he is frenzied, now, and even his mind cannot escape the fog of lust. Cannot possibly resist how she is still reaching for him.

His heart.

He takes her with less care than he should.

There will be no fruit from this union, at least, whatever their physiology might wish; he has made certain his seed will not take. A good thing, too - in his heat-fogged mind, he could scarcely manage to mind such matters.

As it stands he only keeps his senses enough to free his relevant parts from his armour. She is mesmerizing. The curve of her back and swell of her hips, legs spread in invitation. Even exhausted as she is, she tries to meet him as he thrusts into her. Both of them desperate for each other, for some kind of relief.

In blackened armour he drives into her, frantically, like a bestial thing.

When relief finally comes, regret crashes into him.

He has been careless.

She deserves better than that.

It is true that they are both lacking in self control at the moment. Even so, he has been reprehensible in all departments since this fiasco began. Not being there from the beginning, leaving her during, and then returning only to rut at her… no. This is not how it should be done. That she does not know the proper standards, and cannot bring him to task for failing them, changes nothing.

And yet instincts, it seems, will continue to surprise him.

She closes her teeth around his throat. An old and gentle reprimand that has him stilling. The admonishment is ludicrously kind, and brief; and replaced with a soft brush of tongue that stokes the fire in him again, even as the something within him bends in supplication, begging for forgiveness already granted.

“Stay,” she demands of him.

He cannot possibly refuse.

“Yes, I can stay now,” he agrees.

 _At least for the day,_  he thinks. He owes her that much. He owes her far more, in truth, but he can offer this within reason. Only a single day into it, and his poor planning and the unexpected, overwhelming nature of the situation has left her addled and struggling. She is coping well, at least. The anchor of touch helps to ground some of the worst of it.

For a time, he holds her, and the heat is calmed enough, and the other souls are quiet enough, that he is struck by a sudden moment of clarity.

What is he doing?

What has he become?

But then the flames lick through him again, and any thoughts are pressed aside. More primal notions swallow him up. His beloved is in his arms, and he needs her, and she needs him. She is soft. So soft, and vulnerable like this. Fighting an impossible battle against a raging inferno, because he has let it build up too fiercely.

She shifts around in his arms, and he forces himself to release her enough that she can turn to face him. She curls her legs about him, and it takes him only a moment and barely a thought to slip inside of her again. Delicious, slick warmth. Her hands clutch at his back, blunt nails raking over his skin. She buries her face against his shoulder, and nips at him with blunt teeth, too.

He should slow down, he thinks. Go more gently. That is how it is meant to be handled. Go gently, and the flames burn slow. Go frenzied, and they stoke. But the desperation is headier than reason, and it is perhaps too late now. Now they can only try and meet it. Crash into it, and smother the fire with their own bodies.

He drives into her with all the force of his need, in the end. Ragged and ungentle once more.

She clenches around him, sucking in a gasp as pleasure crackles through her. Lightning, but not relief. A frustrated breath follows, her hips rising to meet him, hungry for more. Desperate to be freed. She is warmth all around him, offering his only release to the same end.

He shudders as he comes, his nerves singing, his instincts momentarily soothed in approval. It calms him, but she is still burning. She writhes against him, and it’s enough to drag him back in again.

It takes much longer for them to find a break in the storm, this time.

When at last they do, when at last clarity returns, her hips are bruised and her breaths are ragged, and there are bite marks on her skin that he can scarcely recall placing. He soothes the small hurts with magic, and tips his brow against hers.

Careful.

He must, he  _must_  be more careful.

There are tears on her cheeks. She is distressed. Not over the pain, or their frantic coupling, but over the loss of sense. Over the inevitability that it will be lost again, shortly. That all her efforts to fight it or stave it off are proving futile, and that it is affecting him as well.

He cannot leave her.

No. The more he is gone the worse it will be, and he  _should_  go - she will survive it, however unpleasant some moments may be - but he cannot bear to. He cannot allow himself to worsen things. And even if he could, he does not think…

Well.

She shifts against him again. The soft press of her breasts, and the welcoming warmth between her legs, wet and waiting. The scent of her. Of them. The thoughts flitting through her head, her desire for him. Her need.

It is intoxicating beyond words. He can scarcely lift himself away enough to look at her; the odds he will be able to muster the resolve to leave again are slim. Part of her mind is constantly reassuring herself of his presence now, and it is beyond appalling that she has to. 

She is handling this better than he is, and she has only the barest notion of what is even going  _on._

He presses a kiss to her. Soft, as it should be. He trails his thumb over her jaw. The next blaze is not yet upon them, but he is hard again already. She is only a little confused as he slides into her again; she thinks he has been taken over by it sooner. She is resigned to fighting another losing battle to keep hold of her thoughts.

He moves gently, though. Forces himself to. Sinks into her far more slowly than required, and traces his touch across her skin. Long, slow brushes of his palms. The languid back and forth of their contact rocks through them more like a gentle sea than a roaring storm. He catches her eye, and holds her gaze.

Yes.

Yes, she should look at him.

Except it makes her think of the colour of his eyes, again. Of getting lost in the dark. Of hunting, desperately, on a moonless night.

There is no comfort in that.

It’s a mistake.

When the heat surges up again, he is floundering. His control breaks.

A moment later, it is frantic between them once more. He pins her down by the hips as he sets a demanding pace, drawing pleasured cries from her and protests from the bed posts. Her muscles twitch and tremble as she reaches for him. Tries to bring her legs around him, but ultimately fails, and is left spread before him.

She calls his name, and clenches around him.

It only stokes everything further.

He reaches for the bond between them - reaches back as she is grasping for him, and sinks into it. His teeth split the flesh of her shoulder, and he sweeps his tongue across the wound. Her blood. It crackles with the power of her life, the essence of her, and the crackle spreads through their bond and ignites. Heightens the potency of it all.

When they finally crash, when at last they tumble from the wall of heat and land on a nearby ledge, they are both gasping and shaking. His own form is fine; but hers is fatigued and spent and aching, bruised and bloodied. The injuries are minor blemishes, but it has been hours, now, and she will need real rest sooner rather than later.

She is suffering.

A healing spell helps, but he cannot twine the magic too deeply, or it will only inflame things further. He cools the air and draws her close, murmuring reassurances as he tries to think past the roar of his instincts. She is calm, at least. That helps. Mustering herself as if for battle; gathering her reserves, and drawing strength from her ally in this.

From him.

One of her hands lifts enough to pat at him. Gentle.

“S’alright,” she says.

Of course. Of course, he cannot underestimate her. A few days of this will be exhausting, but she is resilient. And if he can avoid making some key errors, he may be able to sway this into something easier, yet.

He runs his hands across her skin, and tries again.

Slow.

Slow.

Just touching. 

Steady circles over soft skin, sloping curves and firm muscles.

He keeps his eyes closed, this time. Maps the familiar terrain of her body by touch alone. How swiftly it has become comforting territory to him, considering she did not even have it when first they met. She exhales heavily, once again resigned to the idea that he has been swiftly overcome.

He presses a kiss to the side of her neck, and murmurs soothing nonsense.

They can do this.

He keeps up his touches but holds off on sinking back into her for as long as he can. Even when the heat truly flares up once more, and she begins to grind against him, he refrains from giving in. 

It’s only when she brushes her own touch across his length, and breathes his name across his lips, that he finally enters her again. Steady and gradual as he can manage.

“Slow,” he breathes to her. “Go slow.”

She worries for him. But the notion that he might be too taxed by all of this for his own part grounds her, and she musters her own restraint in return; not pressing for more as he stays as still as he can, for as long as he can; just sinking into her a moment. Eyes close. Her heart beating beneath his chest.

It takes a monumental force of effort to slide carefully out, and then slowly back in. Her hands clutch at his shoulders. But she is vicious with herself, fighting the urge to demand more. He meets her resolve with his own, and it is a single, steadying point in the midst of the fire. Small and wavering. It would take only the slightest shift to overwhelm it.

But it’s something.

As he slides in and out of her, his breaths steady a little. Gradually, hers begin to match his. Her grip on him unclenches by the smallest of fractions.

Yes.

Good.

He presses a kiss to her lips, and trails it from the corner of her mouth, across her jaw and up to her temple. He slows further, and in the flames they drift a little. Hazy but not lost. They hold onto one another, and the desperation eases. Because there is no need for it. They are joined together for this moment, appeasing the demands of this relentless drive.

This time, when release comes, it brings another moment of clarity, too. It is easier. A ripple that passes through her, and then draws him over in turn.

He exhales, and she buries her face into his shoulder. Sated, for the moment, and unharmed as well.

“Alright?” she asks him.

He chuckles. The sound is surprisingly weak. If this had happened under other circumstances, they could have relished it. Prepared for it. He would have lavished attention upon her for weeks beforehand; would have never dreamed of leaving her during. Her body would be resilient enough to meet this need without concern.

But once again, it is all chaos, unanticipated developments, and suffering.

“Forgive me,” he breathes.

Her right hand closes around one of his. Clasping. Soft flesh, grip firm with intent rather than desperation.

A marked improvement.

“Nothing to forgive,” she murmurs.

There is no condemnation in her thoughts. No disappointment. Only frustration with another tumultuous set of circumstances, and a resigned sort of acceptance of them.

And love. Always, love, reaching out to him.

They will make it through this.

And he will make it up to her, a thousand times over, in all the centuries they will have in the new world he will create. That is important. That goal, it must be met, and quickly. 

But for now, he will put aside.

For her.


	9. Heat, Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Oh that TDWH NSFW AU gets better every time you do more to it! Now I wanna see Solas doing exactly what he said he would if he'd had the time: lavishing her with attention and love and kisses a few weeks before they reach that part of the cycle. With Lavellan aware of what's happening. And Solas as himself, in the future where they are both saved.

The new world is not the old world, when all is said and done.

They both have to deal with that. 

Solas is quiet, often. He’s still a little broken, and cracks, sometimes, at the weight of all he’s caused. He’s wounded. Sometimes he retreats from her, pulling back from their closeness. Not rejecting her, but walling himself off; trying to keep his pain private. Trying to focus on his own integrity again.

She understands that.

She’s wounded, too.

The people he spared wake, and the magnitude of what has been lost is stark. They fear Solas, and they look at her… it’s like being the herald all over again, only many magnitudes worse. She’s the one people come to when they need things. When they’re afraid. The world is beautiful, magic woven in with the fabric of reality. Whole and lush, and filled with possibilities. Built on undeniable loss, and rippling with the strange aftershocks of more than a dozen godly souls, set free to sow chaos and bounties and all manner of unexpected consequence, here and there.

Without the power of those souls, Solas’ dominion is nowhere near absolute. But the two of them are still apart. Immortal, and different. She can accomplish things she couldn’t, before. She can weave strange magic, and feel tendrils of things from the world, and see patterns in the layers of time and fate.

The thrones were destroyed, but in many ways, they’ve been seated in them just the same.

Still.

It is what it is, and she makes what she can of it. There are people, now. There are places she can go, and she does, at times. Wandering far into the wilds, away from everyone. Even him. She takes her freedom where she can, though sometimes, it feels more like her prison has simply folded outwards, and encompassed the whole world instead. Like there are invisible chains, buried deep below the earth. Binding them all.

It’s not uncommon for her to miss him in these wanderings, though. When she gets back from this one, she’s not wholly surprised to find herself drawn to him a little more than usual. Lingering in his presence. Soothing his hurts, more often than simply letting him withdraw.

She wakes one morning, wrapped around him, and finds him looking at her with unexpected intensity.

“Hmm,” he says. 

That’s all he says. But in her new way of knowing things, she garners more. They are bonded and bound together, and their natures bring a drive to these things, a pull. So that they do not spend the entirety of their immortality forgetting that they, too, can multiply.

Heat.

The cycle has come around again. Too quickly, she thinks, with her new innate perception on such things. But in a new world, where they are the only ones of their kind, the drive to procreate is more… pressing.

Not that they actually  _need_  to, or should reproduce, all things considered. But their bodies are not wholly subject to their will. The drive persists, even if it is fruitless. And it is on the cusp of starting again.

All at once, she is afraid.

“No, ma vhenan,” Solas breathes, abruptly radiating reassurance. “It will be well. We have time to prepare. It will be very different, I swear it.”

_He will not let her suffer through another terrifying heat, he will not let, never again, no. It will not in any way be like last time._

He scowls fiercely, and she soothes him in return. There’s a fear in him, too, that he might somehow fail. That unforeseen circumstances should make this into yet another disaster. But he pulls it back before she sees too much.

“Emma lath, of course it will be fine,” she says, banishing her own uncertainties. She, too, will make it be alright, for both of them. It’s only the two of them now, after all. 

And it is, in the weeks leading up to it, unexpectedly… pleasant. 

They’re always drawn in by one another. But now the energy is a little different. Not the urgent desperation of before. More of a steadily growing anticipation, instead. Sometimes coloured by trepidation, recalling what happened before, but they are both quick to comfort each other.

And they are rarely apart. They don’t want to be. They touch one another freely, but Solas is exceptionally abundant with his affections. Even in front of witnesses - petitioners and the people she is still trying to convince to be friends, of a sort - he will keep a hand on her, and kiss her at times. Stand close enough for her to feel the warmth of him beside her.

In private, they are almost always touching. Lingering. Not even stealing quick trysts, but just nuzzling brushes and embraces. Threading their fingers together, or leaning upon one another. Nights are for simply holding each other close, as often as not. When they do couple, it’s more playful than anything. Soft and light, teasing and unhurried.

Two weeks out, though, Solas begins to feel intense surges of disquiet whenever someone else approaches her. Skyhold has gone from a prison to the fortress it should be, teeming with people. It has vastly improved the atmosphere, in her opinion. As well as the decor. But Solas’ instincts now see a lack of security. Too many interlopers, too many places that might be accessed by the unwelcome.

Not that any would dare, she thinks, but he’s starting to undo some of the work she’s done in making people less afraid of him. Sending them hard stares, standing stiffly, snapping a little. And it’s only going to get worse.

…And, truthfully, she’s starting to feel it too. There’s a strange raw nerve in her, demanding her attention, warning that they are going to be vulnerable and out-of-sorts and that she needs to find a safe place for them. She catches herself locking doors and sealing off passageways, and feeling hypersensitive to the sounds of footsteps, and the presence of too many less-than-wholly-familiar faces in a room.

“We must withdraw,” Solas determines, after a few days of that.

“To where?” she wonders. Leaving Skyhold feels unsafe. Staying also feels unsafe. Some part of her thinks they should just kick everyone else out, but that’s unreasonable.

Solas kind of seems to agree with the sentiment, though.

“I have a place,” he tells her. “We shall leave tomorrow, if that suits?”

She sighs, and nods.

Travelling is… not fun.

As bad as the fortress full of people had been, when they cross through the soft portals that lead through a place both like and unlike the crossroads, and the Fade, their nerves heighten. Walking hand in hand helps; but she cannot stop feeling perilously vulnerable, and half tempted to run straight back to Skyhold, and just barricade them both into their bedroom there.

 _I will destroy anything that threatens you,_  Solas thinks. She’s not wholly sure he meant her to pick up on it, if it’s a warning or a reassurance, or if he’s just thinking it so hard that it came across unintentionally. But it’s uncharacteristic enough of his real self that it makes her worry.

His grip on her tightens a little, apologetic.

He has never bonded with someone before her. The intensity still takes him aback, and it probably doesn’t help that he’s got a streak of insecurity a mile wide in him anyway. If anything goes wrong, he will never forgive himself.

 _It’s just sex,_  she reminds him.  _We can handle having lots of sex. We’ve done it before._

It doesn’t lighten his mood, as she’d hoped. Instead he surges with a rush of affection, and stops, and brushes her cheek with the back of his hand. The sky is glittering emerald above him, filled with strange stars, caught perpetually somewhere on the cusp of twilight. 

He loves her.

He loves her, and he will keep her safe, and look after her. And definitely kill anyone who tries to take advantage of this situation. Stone dead.

Well.

Alright then.

She sends all sentiments back to him, mirroring them. A rush of shared tenderness. 

But the roads are still too open.

They resume their trek, after a moment.

“The sooner we get there, the sooner you can stop thinking murderous thoughts,” she says, raising their joined hands, and brushing her lips across the backs of his knuckles.

Finally, he feels a flare of amusement. A little self-deprecation, too.

“I have spent enough time behaving like a brute. I have no desire to continue the trend,” he assures her. “But at this rate, I will be threatening squirrels for looking at you too long.”

Strange that she’s not in the same state, all things considered. After the tempest of the freed souls had passed, she’d been viciously protective of him; profoundly aware of just how vulnerable the entire ordeal had left him. But now she finds herself less apt to be concerned about others approaching him, and more worried about them being too close to  _her._

“Instincts,” Solas simply tells her. 

 _Strange ones,_  she thinks.

They manage to make it to their destination with little fuss, at least. Not everyone trusts the magic permeating things, now; or the drifting pathways through other layers of reality. She has no trouble with it, though. Given enough time, she might even be better at handling such transitions than Solas himself. It is, after all, part of the magic seared into her very being, now.

Their destination leads them to a small sanctuary, in hot, dry lands half a world away from Skyhold. The place is beautiful. Blue stone against red earth, with a glittering oasis settled nearby. It’s buried deep enough that most of the chambers offer welcome relief from the sweltering heat. Furnished, but not abundantly so. Still, there’s enough to get by, and a fountain of cold water big enough to swim in.

“What did you build this for?” she wonders.

“…This,” he admits.

There’s a certain note of disquiet that always comes to him when he speaks of what he did before, when he took all those souls. Under the circumstances, she opts not to pursue that line of questioning any further.

The desert is quiet and still, and empty save for animals and spirits. Neither seem inclined to venture very close. She hunts, a little; finds herself exceptionally satisfied whenever she brings something back. Solas keeps her within view, though, and after a few days, she becomes disinclined to go far. And then to even head outside at all. The open air feels to exposed.

The night before it hits, they both want to barricade the entrance, and so they do. She can feel prickles of something rising up in her. It’s interesting. Not frightening, at least, or overwhelming. Not this time. She can’t remember noticing similar sensations before, but then, she wouldn’t have been as aware of them back then, either.

Solas holds her, and she manages to drift off to sleep with little incident.

She wakes halfway through the night, a strange anxiety tangled in her chest. The heat is beginning to pool in her, twitching at her, and she can feel Solas holding her, but there’s some irrational thought in her that he might leave. They’ve planned it out and they’re barricaded into a safe place together, and she knows he won’t, and yet. He might. He might just… go.

Like before.

She feels him drift up from sleep. His thoughts reach for her, checking. Already somewhat aware that something’s wrong. She can’t quite clear away the feeling on her own, though. It provokes a flare of worry in him. Then guilt.

He leans into her, and inhales. Presses more firmly against her.

 _I am here, I am not going anywhere,_  he promises.

“I know,” she says.

It rings a little hollow.

 _Feel,_  he advises, reaching out to her in other ways. She follows his prompting, mentally running her fingers across all places where they’ve become entwined with one another, and reassures herself even more. He’s here. Just him and no one else.

They’re together. They’re both safe, and they’ll be fine.

She survived it before. She’ll survive it again.

Solas’ sorrow spikes, though, and he lets out a pained breath.

“It will not be such a struggle, this time, ma vhenan. I swear,” he says.

She closes her eyes, and tries to relax a little. The soft circles his hands are running over her do help with that, at least.

“Show me what it should be, then?” she asks.

He dips his head down, and presses a kiss to her shoulder.

“I will.”


	10. Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Dark!Lavellan.

When he is ready – when the misery no longer sits so heavily in his bones, and the determination of whatever plan he has dreamed up bolsters him – she relents to his pensive requests, and shows him what she has made of the world.

It is much better, now.

Smaller, of course. She did not have the energy to repair all of what had been broken. Or, rather, she did, but not the talent to access it while keeping the souls at bay. They claw at her now. Hungry and pressing. Cramped and caged. But their struggle wraps them around one another, and she is able to press the conflict aside again. To hide the cracks in herself from her heart, before he can see them and become distressed.

The world is smaller. But it does not need to be large. She pushed the broken places away, and buried them, and made what she could salvage into the best of itself. Beautiful blue skies that burn with colours at sunrise and sunset; crowded with stars. Clear running rivers, that drift between massed trees and tangled wilds, and cities nestled into high-up branches, and resting on the coast of a sea that looks placid enough.

Any ship that sailed from it, though, would not have to go far before it reached a barrier. And past that barrier, the waters would turn to ash. The skies black, and the land barren.

That place no longer matters, though.

There is room enough here for the people she could save. And they will live forever, those people. Her kin, and companions, and others. They will not wither or die. They will not suffer. She will give them all enough power to see them content, and the world she has made will offer challenges to divert them. There is food and beauty aplenty, and there will be no empires. No armies. No mages and Templars, or rich and poor, or outcast and unwelcome. Just one clan.

One clan, in the trees.

“Do you like it, ma vhenan?” she asks.

Solas looks at all with sorrow.

“You tried very hard to fix it, I see,” he says, gently.

“It was difficult,” she admits. “I could not focus so well. Especially not at the beginning. I am doing much better now.”

He nods, though beneath his calm expression, his despair flares up again. She reaches for him. Tries to soothe. He does not disapprove of her efforts, she thinks; but he is still anguished over the situation. She brushes his face. Kisses his lips, and then his neck. Nips, just gently, at the skin of his throat.

He shivers.

So warm, his skin.

Oh. She has made herself too cold, again. She realizes, and warms herself as he brushes her cheek with his palm; and then curls and arm around her, drawing her close.

So pleasant and pliant.

“Would you like to see more?” she asks.

He glances around, and wonders what has become of the people.

“I have not woken them yet,” she admits.

He nods in acceptance, but thinks to himself that he would like it if she did. If he could see how many were left, and how well they fared with his own two eyes. He would like to make certain they are not the only two people remaining in all the world.

She thinks she could handle it if they were. But that would be sorrowful, too; there are still others she cares for. And he is so easily made to feel lonely.

“I will wake them,” she promises.

“Thank you,” he says, brushing a thumb across her temple.

A slow smile spreads across her face.

“Perhaps we should enjoy our privacy while we still have it, though,” she suggests, running a hand down the soft fabric of his tunic. He sighs, and leans into her. There is longing in him. Longing and remorse, all sharp and jagged on his poor, delicate insides. She brushes her palms over him, as if to wear the dangerous edges away. Perhaps it was too soon. A day more; a year, or a hundred years. They could have waited. The world would have kept.

“Perhaps…” she begins, and then cuts off.

Jagged things claw at her own insides, too.

She is too close. With a wrench she moves herself away from him – moves  _them_  away from him – and staggers back several steps. She hardens the air between them. Keeps him at bay as something wrenches at her. Snagging the edge of her soul. It burns, and cracks, and makes the air shimmer with heat. The grass at her feet curls and dies.

No.

Away.

Without the breath to apologize for her abrupt departure, she flings herself up into the sky. Black and burning. The air shrieks. Her flesh twists as wings sprout from her back, and she tears the clouds, past the barriers, and into the broken lands where the conflict cannot do any more harm. Magic snaps at the desolate earth. She battles, more fiercely than she has had to for a long while; but she will not let them out. She will not let them have him again.

Shove them back.

Keep them out.

The void swallows them again, tangling all the others together as she struggles her own way free.

She feels… less, though.

More cracked.

When she flies back, and lands, she is cracked still. Chipped all on the inside. It must show on the outside, she thinks, because her heart is horrified again. No. She should not have shown him. But she cannot remember… how… what is she, again? What is normal? What does she look like?

He presses urgent hands to her skin. Skin that should not be covered in spikes and scales. To the places that are bleeding, and oh, yes, there should not be blood. Flesh should be closed, not split open. He brushes her wings, until they grow small and gone, and her tail. Presses fingertips to her lips, so she recalls that she has a mouth. Gently rolls her fingers between his, until the wicked claws retreat into rounded nails, and the blackened veins on her palms recede.

When it is all said and done, he is sitting with her on the forest floor, holding her close and whispering her name.

“I am all better now,” she promises.

Pain twists through him, and she regrets it.

“No, no, no,” she croons, tightening her hands on him, in turn.

She lowers him to the forest floor, the soft blanket of leaves, and kisses him fiercely. She will show him. She will show him just how precious he is. Precious heart and precious soul. Her touch ignites his nerves. Arousal chases away some of the pain. She tears the flimsy fabric of his clothes, and kisses her way down his chest. Licks and nips – carefully, just carefully, but still she draws blood once or twice – and is most careful of all when she pulls down his leggings.

“Should I stop?” she asks him.

His breaths are a little ragged. His pupils are blown, and his cock is hardening.

“No,” he whispers, with only the faintest twinge of shame.

She is mindful of her teeth as she takes him into her mouth. Down her throat.

There is, at least, no challenge to that anymore.

She runs her hands down his thighs, and hums around his length. Rises and falls, and twists her magic, just so, to draw out the sensations. She cups his soft flesh, and he curses and resists the urge to thrust against her. When he loses that fight, and his hips twitch upwards, she only hums again, though. Approving. She takes him until he is shuddering. Then she holds him on the precipice until his skin trembles, and his breaths turn to desperate gasps, and he is almost entirely consumed with sensation.

At last, she lets him go. Feels the fireworks beneath his skin as he comes all in a rush.

So beautiful. Flushed and spent. Rippling with aftershocks, and for a few brief moments, free of his misery. Pink, freckled skin peppered with rich, green leaves, and tatters of ripped clothing.

She nuzzles his hip.

“So good,” she praises. “So lovely and so good, ma sa’lath.”

He reaches for her.

She slinks up, and lets him pull her into his arms.

~

She wakes the others slowly.

They are afraid of her. It rolls off of them even waves, and colours their every interaction with her. Even the ones who knew her, before; whose faces are etched into her memories. It’s alright, though. She has become a thing to be afraid of. And their fear keeps them from lashing out at her heart. Keeps them even from speaking of such notions.

A few pointed glances, a few well-placed comments, and they stop even  _thinking_  of them, too.

It’s alright.

She understands.

But they are not allowed to harm him. They are tasked with helping him, and themselves. With healing. There has been a lot of damage. There must be a lot of healing.

She is careful, to keep the others inside of her in their place. To not slip up, or lose control again, where it can be witnessed. Where her weakness could be scented. Where it could damage what she has made whole again, or slip through and get to  _him_  again.

Solas helps.

But Solas must also be kept safe.

Sometimes, there are moments. When she is with him, and it is peaceful. Quiet. And there are people, but they don’t realize she’s there, and so they aren’t afraid. When the claws don’t press quite so close. She can be small, in those moments. So small she feels like a speck swept up by the ocean. Like she is screaming in the middle of a storm. Buried inside of her own skin.

Sometimes, she a hand over Solas’ arm. Feels like she needs… something.

Help.

Help, please.

But no. It is dangerous. There is only one way he could help and she cannot – will not – let him do that. She will keep him safe. She is strong, and she can fight. However long it takes, she can fight.

Those moments are regrettable, though.

Even though she never speaks, and even though he can no longer hear her thoughts, somehow, Solas always seems to know what they mean.

After them, when he finally manages to pry himself from her side, he will always, without fail, go and spend time with Dorian.

Their friendship is something of a surprise.

She does not recall Solas favouring Dorian very much in the time when they knew each other before. But then, her memory is not always perfect. There are holes in it, now. Punched a little wider with each internal struggle. The fights whittle her down, eat pieces away. It isn’t of much consequence, so long as she can keep the core of herself intact. The will that wins her the fights. That, at least, has never wavered. But sometimes she cannot recall… what is her keeper’s name? Who was the one… the one at the war table, the man who was a Templar… what was the place where she danced with Solas the first time…?

Minor irritants, in the end. Her keeper easily recites her name to her once more, and so does the man – Cullen – though they are both fearful, and unnerved at being asked. Solas dances with her again, so it does not matter, she thinks, where they danced before.

It is well.

And when he is with Dorian, Solas is sharp and determined, and distant. Distant is bad, because she wants him close. Distant is good, because it is safe; it is further away from the things she keeps locked inside of her.

She lets him have it whenever he wants.

Dorian approaches her, once.

He doesn’t recall her, of course. That was another life. Another Dorian. But he’s brave, and so she isn’t very surprised. The braver ones come to her, sometimes. They ask her careful questions. Some even yell and shout and make terrible accusations. They’re afraid, but they aren’t cowed. As long as they don’t threaten Solas, that’s fine. They can shout all they like at her. It’s only their fear that holds them back.

Dorian doesn’t shout, though.

“Your lover tells me that in another lifetime, you and I were friends,” he says to her.

“That’s true,” she confirms.

He laughs, uncomfortably.

“I’m not quite sure I’m picturing it correctly. I imagine you were less… terrifying?” he suggests.

Afraid, but curious. Intrigued. He has had so few real friends.

“A little, I think,” she concedes. “You threw books over railings. I called your father a fool.”

Dorian clears his throat.

“Sounds like the sort of thing that would win me over. Back before the man was horribly killed by a wrathful god, at least,” he says.

She looks at him quietly for a moment.

Considers.

“I changed you,” she says. “I made you different from what you were. So you could live here. Perhaps… I think I should apologize for that. I tried not to change who you were, on the inside. Or what you thought, or felt, or wanted.”

Dorian swallows, disquieted.

“I imagine it would have been much simpler for you if you had,” he suggests.

“How?” she wonders, honestly baffled.

“Well… you could have made us into a much more accommodating crowd, for starters. Worshipful, I suppose. Obedient. That sort of thing,” he explains.

Oh.

That.

“I have no interest in that,” she says. “Solas did, for a while, but he could let more of the others in without losing himself. I can’t. All I do is hold them back, and turn their power into things. And lose pieces, sometimes.”

Dorian raises an eyebrow.

“Lose pieces…?” he asks.

She laughs. Probably, she shouldn’t have admitted that. She forgot, for a moment, that they aren’t friends anymore.

“It’s not important,” she says. “Would you like to play chess?”

The question throws him. He considers it, and then, with some trepidation, agrees. The entire match he’s worried about what she’ll do if he beats her. She sets the board up where they can play and watch the sunset; listen to the breeze rustling the tree branches, and the river running over stones. It’s never too cold, here. Sometimes it’s too warm, though; for those who are used to the warmth, and crave it. She lets it be, sometimes.

When she wins, it’s fairly.

Dorian is immensely relieved.

“I would not hurt you over a game,” she tells him.

He nods, but he doesn’t quite believe her.

She’s surprised that it hurts. The fear is useful. But some part of her doesn’t like it, perhaps. Doesn’t like being… doesn’t… well. It’s not important.

She sends him away, and sits, and thinks for a long while. Until the stars are shining. Until she makes her way back into the sanctuary, as the claws start to rake inside of her again; pressing upon the gateway of their prison. Snaking through and cleaving at her, bit by bit.

They don’t win.

She won’t let them win.

~

Solas finds her, in the morning.

“You did not come to me last night,” he notes, pained.

She drifts in one of the pools. It is a good thing she has cleaned the blood from it. A good thing she remembered to.

“I’m sorry, vhenan. I was distracted,” she says.

He’s quiet as he approaches. Steps trailing softly around the pool.

“Distracted,” he says, and he has guessed what truly happened. But she is well enough, now. She has the right shape, she thinks – or close enough to it – and he doesn’t press the matter. He leave it be. There’s an unexpected calmness to him. Hope is bright. It makes her glad; perhaps he is getting better, at last. Perhaps he has found something, in all the things she has made, that has seemed worthwhile to him.

“I want to go somewhere,” he tells her.

“Where would you like to go?” she asks, rising from the waters. He extends a hand to help her. Wholly unnecessary, but the feeling of his palm against hers is quite pleasant. Grounding.

He smiles.

“Up the mountains, I think,” he says. “I want to get a closer look at the sky.”

It’s good when he makes requests. When she can give him things to ease his sorrows. She agrees, readily; takes wing and carried him to the highest peak, where the air is a little thinner. But not dangerously so. She improves it for him, just the same. Even the mountain peaks are accommodating. Soft plants grow across them. Tiny pink flowers reach towards the sun. They smell sweet, and he is sweeter still; beckoning her close and pressing kisses to her lips.

He trails his hand across her jaw. Twines his legs with hers, and thinks overwhelmingly of how much he loves her. How much he loves the feel of her. The spirit of her. It aches, a little. But it is far less than his usual ache.

Something begins to… trouble her, though. Something plucking at her senses. Like an electrical storm, growing on the fringes of her thoughts.

She turns her attention eastwards, and down. Something is…

Solas pulls away from her, and stands.

“Something is happening. I should investigate,” she says.

But then she pauses.

He is still thinking of his love for her. But beneath that, there is a wealth of determination. Hard as steel, and solid as the mountain they are on.

“I was going to do it myself,” he says. “But perhaps this is for the best. I was the only sure distraction, after all. And I do not think that I could willingly leave you to face whatever may come alone.”

She narrows her eyes.

She should go, now, but Solas is walking backwards. They are quite close to the edge. It’s no danger, not with her there. But he is not slowing. Not slowing, and then in one, smooth movement, he turns and steps straight off of the mountain.

“Solas!” she snaps, rising to her feet just as he does.

A blink, and she has caught him. The air crackles with the force of being bent so quickly. Her arms are full of him. He could not have thought it would work, that he could successfully jump with her so near, and watching, and yet, there is only a sense of success from him.

The air breaks black, as he closes his arms around her in tight embrace.

“Ar lath ma,” he whispers.

She speeds, carrying him, towards the source of the disruption.

Halfway there and she knows that even with her power, she won’t make it.

The others are clamouring. Clawing. Terrified. Overwhelming as they sense the end. There is no hope of self-preservation, now, nothing to grant them the least restraint. They rend themselves apart as readily as they tear into her.

She falters.

Solas holds her, as her flesh splits open beneath his hands.

In his thoughts, she sees it. What he’s been doing this entire time. What he’s been keeping from her. Working with Dorian, and some of the others. Building. Changing, and altering, and scrambling to gather enough power without her notice. To try and create an amulet; and when the amulet failed, a stone. A simple, tiny shard of a stone. The sort of stone that could tear through the very fabric of time. With just enough energy for a single person to survive the trip.

 _Oh,_  she thinks.

As the world bleeds away, she leans her face into him. She hopes…

“Ar lath ma,” she whispers back.

Then time turns, and they are both of them swept away.


	11. Time, Continued

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More Dark!Lavellan!

Dorian likes to think he has a fairly high threshold for strangeness.

He’s from Tevinter, after all. ‘Strange’ doesn’t begin to describe Minrathous, at times - even if the reality doesn’t quite live up to the lurid tales of daily murder and rampant orgies that are so popular in southern Thedas.

Or, rather, it  _didn’t,_  before a rampaging demon god started destroying everything.

Amazing what people will turn to in dire circumstances.

Still. Being apprehended by said god, awaiting death, and then being informed that he’d earned the Favour of His Holy and Most Miraculous Bride, and as such was selected to join the New World Order after a long and deeply suspicious nap was… jarring.

He is a fairly wonderful person, all things considered. Still. He’s not sure that he ever thought he’d reach ‘specially chosen by Andraste(?)’ levels of awe-inspiring.

And then he actually woke to the New World Order.

There were more rainbows than he’d anticipated.

Less slave labour and being ground underneath the bootheels of a tremendous demon god, too, which was nice. Said demon god also seemed to have gone through something of a, ah, personal change. He had become a she, and she was much less prone to speeches. Or speaking in general. Or turning into gigantic, terrifying beasts and burning down entire cities.

It was a good change, overall.

Matters became a little clearer when an elf with a suspiciously strong resemblance to the somewhat-humanoid form of the other, more unsettling demonic overlord approached him shortly after his introduction to the Land of Rainbows and Flowers and Treehouses. The man who was the beloved of the… ah.

Well, that shed a bit of light on some things.

“So, just out of curiosity, do two timeshare on the overwhelming demonic power, or…?” he had asked, as his opening salvo.

Possibly not the wisest move his mouth had even made.

The man hadn’t even risen to the bait, though. He’d just looked at him, shrewdly.

“You are Dorian, correct?” he’d asked.

How did these people always know his name? He was fairly sure it wasn’t not a godly power thing. Their illustrious hostess, at least, often seemed to furrow her brow before going with ‘hey’ or ‘you there’ as her primary modes of addressing people, for one thing.

“I see my reputation precedes me,” he had said, anyway, endeavouring not to appear as rattled about the whole thing as he actually was. Which was quite a lot, in fact. Finding out that the world had ended and more or less been replaced by some insipid painting of reality was not fun. Even less so when one factored in that basically everyone else was dead.

His family was dead. His friends were dead. Even Felix was dead, and as fabulous as Dorian was, what kind of ridiculous god would choose to spare him but not Felix? Or even half the other survivors he’d met so far and not Felix, come to think of it.

“Come with me,” the elf said.

Then he turned and walked away, as if he fully expected to be followed.

Well, Dorian supposed, when you were in bed with the Queen of Everything, you could probably expect to wield a little authority over the other peons.

The elf ended up leading him through the strangest conglomeration of buildings and nature he had ever seen in his life, before finally stopping at the edge of the bluest river imaginable. It looked like paint, Dorian thought. He couldn’t have been paid to drink the water. As it stood he had no idea where the stuff that came out of the taps was flowing from. But it hadn’t poisoned him yet, so he supposed he could be content with not knowing.

“You were the one who figured out time travel,” the elf said to him.

Dorian froze.

Processed that comment for a moment.

“Aha. Well, there’s been a misunderstanding, it seems,” he ventured. It could have been a tremendous mistake to admit to that. But if they thought he could just whip up a temporal portal out of nowhere, it was probably best to lay that notion to rest right then and there.

 _Especially_  right then and there, when the terrifying god-creature wasn’t around to enact horrible retribution.

Not that her – husband? Lover? Masculine alter-ego? – seemed much of an improvement.

“A friend of mine did some experiments on the subject. I helped, but, we never achieved anything close to success,” he admitted.

“In another time, you did,” the elf told him.

And then he proceeded to tell Dorian the strangest part of it all. A story of time travel, ancient elven gods, death, and rebirth, failure and sacrifice. And foolishness. And love. Love threaded through every part of the thing, as surely as in the most overblown romance serial. Though the narrator himself hardly spoke of it. The sentiment nevertheless suffused his tale.

Even, and perhaps especially, right up to current events.

“So – just so we’re clear – you’re telling me that you are Fen’Harel, the ancient elven trickster god, and that the horrifying creature currently indulging in our continued existence was once a mortal elven woman who, in another lifetime, was quite good friends with me, but then travelled backwards through time after she saved the world once, and managed to fall in love with  _you_  twice, but then had to wrench a teeming morass of evil  _godly souls_  out of you after you wolfed them down in the most ill-advised and doomed attempt to ‘fix’ a situation that I have ever heard in my life?” he had asked.

Fen’Harel - or Solas, as it seemed he preferred – nodded.

The man was very, very lucky that any acts of violence against his person would probably result in gruesome death for the perpetrator.

“I hate you,” Dorian informed him.

“I understand,” Solas said. “But regardless of your opinion of me, you and I are now the only ones who can salvage this mess.”

“With time travel?” he asked.

Well.

He could certainly see the appeal of the notion. Just in general. And he supposed if he  _had_  gotten it to work once, then there must be a way. Or, there must have been a way, before. He wasn’t certain that the mechanics of the world were at all what they used to be, though.

As if aiming to emphasize his point, a cloud drifted by several feet below the tree tops.

“…I’m listening,” he had allowed.

And he kept listening, and watching, and thinking about it all. It was a good thing, he concluded, after a while. Having a project of sorts. Having hope, of sorts. Their hostess was terrifying, but the effect didn’t seem to be deliberate. Solas’ gaze was almost always fixed to her, any time she was near. The man usually managed to keep his expression quite neutral. But every so often, that would crack.

Dorian found him impossible to look at when that happened. He’d never been good at confronting feelings – his or anyone else’s. Crippling emotional devastation was definitely out of his league.

Better just to leave it be.

“So, it occurs to me that I am not actually sure what, in this state of affairs, you find displeasing,” he had said, of an evening. Solas generally walked along the river with him when they were ‘talking shop’. He suspected there was something about the space that made it a little difficult for their hostess to listen in. Or, more likely, difficult for her to realize that she was being deliberately kept out.

Solas glanced at him.

“All of it,” he said, just shy of impatient.

“Yes, but if we manage to pull this off, and you go back in time – I have to wonder. Will it be to stop this entire debacle from occurring in the first place, or will you just nip off the part where your global domination was supplanted by her instead?”

It was, he thought, a rather important question. Going to such lengths just to replace one terrifying god with another hardly seemed worth the effort, after all. And, on balance, he rather liked the deeply-unnerving-but-quiet-and-withdrawn goddess just a  _tiny_  bit more than the wrathful-and-overblown doombringer.

“I have no desire to rule,” Solas told him. “At this point I would trust her judgement and leadership far above my own. But this is not sustainable. She has been battered by unwelcome cosmic forces, one after the other, for years. Now godly souls rage at her, and the balance of the world hinges upon powers she has never had before, and possesses only the most primal understanding of. However long it takes, this will destroy her. Utterly. And when it does, the rest of us will be destroyed in turn.”

He stared off into the distance.

Poignantly.

He was good at that, Dorian thought.

No one was incorruptible, and he could not say he trusted his strange and morose ally any further than he could throw him. But total destruction  _did_  sound unappealing.

He had been willing to accept that answer.

The project itself was distracting enough, anyway. Trying to get a working model of his theoretical magic – theories for which he no longer had  _any_  notes or references, mind – would have been hard enough back in the ‘real world’. (Technically the past, lost world, but he found it difficult to conceive of things that way; it all felt like a dream.) With the way things worked in the Land of Rainbows and Flowers, however, the challenge was doubled over. And that was before one even began to account for the lack of available materials.

Their first few attempts failed before they were forced to come at it from a completely different angle.

“We’re not looking to create something sustainable. We just need a window,” Dorian mused. “A single moment. Being tidy about it doesn’t matter. Once the clock is turned back, everything here will be unmade. We might as well burn up the very air itself, as long as it doesn’t happen quickly enough to kill you before you can get through.”

Solas had been quiet for a long moment.

Pensive.

“What?” he wondered.

The man shook his head.

“Just considering,” he admitted. “Wondering where anyone lost to time might end up.”

Dorian leaned back against a nearby tree. They’d buried their latest project along the river. There was a gap, there, where the water didn’t run quite right. It sloped upwards and away, like a broken seam. He didn’t much care for it. Staring at it too long gave him a headache, and made him think unpleasant, existential things about the nature of reality and the fragility of existence.

But it was useful.

“Worried about your lady love?” he wondered.

Solas frowned. His lips thinned. He stared towards the sky for a long moment.

“It must be hard to understand. You have only seen what she has become. Not who she truly is, or was before,” the man reasoned.

It was a curious thing, he supposed. Ostensibly, somewhere in the midst of that terrifying creature was someone he had, in another lifetime, called a friend. A very good friend, even. It made him wonder just what was there. What kind of person fell through time and battled gods and won their hearts, and how could they be real and not just some sort of storybook legend?

“Someone will need to distract her,” Solas mused, interrupting his thoughts.

Dorian raised an eyebrow.

“Well. You  _are_  generally the best at that,” he’d mused, not really expecting the response to go anywhere. It couldn’t, after all. The whole plan was to send the blasted man  _back_ , and he could hardly play the distraction while he worked the spell himself, now could he?

And yet, Solas nodded. Once. As if he had reached a decision, and it was a decision that agreed with Dorian’s assessment.

“I am,” he said. “No one else will be able to hold her attention so thoroughly, or for so long.”

Dorian raised an eyebrow at him.

“I think even  _you_  would struggle to keep her from noticing the giant time portal opening scant feet from where she was standing,” he reasoned.

“True enough. I suppose this means I will not be using the portal,” Solas agreed.

…Oh.

Hmm.

Dorian considered that.

On the one hand, at the very least, he could trust himself to not suddenly give into a non-existent temptation and become some kind of abominable dragon god. The idea just wasn’t terribly appealing to him. Nor did it seem to come highly recommended from either of the two people who had given a whirl so far. But then again, resting the fate of everything upon  _his_  shoulders seemed… decidedly flimsier than leaving it in the hands of a god.

Even a notorious elven trickster god who had inadvertently doomed them all and made this entire scenario necessary in the first place, and…

Actually, no. He was going to take that back.

He was definitely the safest bet available, here.

“I suppose that means  _I’m_  going, then? Splendid,” he drawled.

There was a long moment of silence. A very tense sort of silence.

Solas fixed him with a Look.

It was not the look of a wearied elf, or the look of a grief-stricken mourner, or the look of a man who had managed to fail, time and time again. It was not the look of a survivor, or an innovator, or a veteran, or a king.

It was the look of an ancient thing, old and in some ways unfathomable. Someone who had seen cities and empires rise up and then crumble back down into dust. Someone to whom Dorian’s entire life was barely the blink of an eye.

“If it comes to it, kill me,” the god said to him. “I have lived a long time, and I do not know that I have ever deserved all the second chances I have spoilt. I will be weak. Barely stronger than a talented mage. But strike while I am alone, and do not touch her.”

Dorian wasn’t sure that he would trust such counsel any further than he could throw it.

Nevertheless, he inclined his head.

It probably wouldn’t do, he thought, to go about enraging his chief collaborator on the eve of their possible success. Especially when said collaborator was the damned Dread Wolf.

Solas turned away.

“You will see,” the man decided.

See what, Dorian wondered?

And in spite of himself – in spite of the fact that it was probably a terrible idea – he found himself seeking out their terrifying hostess. The woman who made the very air about her seem to boil with invisible chaos. Whose dark eyes looked tainted and empty, and whose lips pulled back to reveal sharp teeth; ensuring even her smiles held an ominous warning.

He had looked for answers, and he was not certain he found them. Whatever her assurances, she was terrifying. Terrifying in a deep and visceral way.

But perhaps…

Well.

Perhaps, Dorian thought, that wasn’t  _her._

He had supposed he would find out.

His threshold for strange things is much sturdier now, after all. Now that he’s lived through the end of the world, and come back into it. Now that he’s seen how fragile it all really is. Now that he’s watched Minrathous burn, and watched two gods blaze across the sky, and woken to a broken ‘paradise’. Stepped through time, barely escaping the snapping jaws of something arcing forward to stop him, only to tumble down between the trees of some bright patch of wilderness.

Ugh.

_Wilderness._

He grimaces, and sits up gingerly. Temporal magic tastes like tar between the teeth. Or at least it does in this case. His head is still cracking and fizzing, and there are stars behind his eyes; though the dizziness could be from the landing as much as the trip itself.

A quick pat-down reveals he’s still intact, at the very least. All vital bits accounted for. Moustache, limbs, clothing.

Good.

A quiet shuffling in the underbrush draws his attention.

He blinks, and glances over. Maker, he hopes it’s not a bear or some infernal beast. That would be just the thing, wouldn’t it? Successfully survive the apocalypse and time travel, only to land in the lap of the wilderness and end up as a meal for some wretched animal.

He freezes when he sees an elven woman staring back at him.

All in all, it takes him a moment to recognize her.

She’s got Dalish tattoos on her face, and a… much less  _demonic_  countenance, that’s for certain. She’s clad in precious little attire, as if she’s just jumped out of the window following some ill-fated tryst. Or so he’d think, if they weren’t lost in the woods beyond civilization. As it stands he supposes she’s fled some recent campsite, or similar. She looks a little ragged, as if she’s been running.

Her eyes on him, though, are very wide.

“Dorian?” she asks, in a tiny voice that holds no strange echoes or trembles.

Her teeth are flat.

Her eyes have actual whites in them.

It’s amazing, the difference little things can make.

“Yes, it’s me,” he confirms.

In hindsight, he probably should have phrased that differently. All things considered. It’s terribly confusing, though, dealing with multiple time travel factors. Some part of his thoughts expect her to know him, because he knows her, and yet she hasn’t actually met him and shouldn’t know him, except that she  _has_  met him, but it wasn’t really  _him,_  it was another version of himself that he has no memory and only very little knowledge about.

The end result being that he’s not entirely expecting the former Goddess of Terror to rush forward and hug him.

Even without several powerful souls all rolling about her insides, he discovers that she has an alarmingly strong grip.

“Dorian!” she exclaims, with a sob.

A  _sob._

There is a  _sobbing elven woman_  hugging him.

She probably thinks he’s the  _other_  him.

Well. Not the other him who is technically also around and in Tevinter at the moment (and isn’t  _that_ strange to think about; though, really, having more Dorian Pavus in the world is just doing it a favour when it comes right down to it). No, the other him from the other time, which is where she must think he’s come from, falling out of a portal in the air like that.

“Er. There, there,” he offers. Throwing in a tentative back pat for good measure.

That just seems to make her grip him all the harder, though. For a moment. Then she lets him go, and fixes him with a very intent sort of stare. Not ‘I have swallowed the souls of the gods’ levels of intensity, but surprisingly, not that far off, either.

“How did you get here? What happened? Is everyone alright?” she asks.

Oh, Maker.

This is going to be an interesting conversation, isn’t it?


	12. Best Laid Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dark!Solas sees his plan through.

In the days following her recapture by Solas, after the failed attack by the two dragons, matters worsen.

Skyhold is damaged, and each attempt to repair it seems to be met with setbacks, as if the very world itself is fighting against Solas’ control. She thinks, perhaps, if things went smoother… maybe there could have been an equilibrium to regain. If the walls of the fortress could have been restored. If she could have promised him that she would never try to escape again, and meant it…

But that’s not what happens.

Each new barrier he sets is challenged by the elements. Storms of magic, incursion of strange spirits and abominations, shadowy figures rail against his efforts. Every time he leaves, she finds another chink in her now makeshift prison. The world beyond is terrifying, but.

She has to try.

Escape holds the best chance of finding _some_ way to stop all of this.

The third time she breaks free, she nearly makes it down the mountain before he gets back. Then she slips, and falls. Snaps her the leg on the rocks and ends up stranded on a crumbling ledge for fifteen minutes of agony, while blue flame embers melt and re-freeze the snow around her, and sharp winds bite at her exposed skin. Her blood trickling red down the rocks.

He plucks her up, wordless and sharp with tension. Heals her wounds, and carries her back to the mangled fortress.

He sits with her, awhile. Lets her brush her hands across his skin. Turns his face into her caresses, kisses her palms, and then burrows against her neck, where he breathes her in. She’s a little surprised when he begins to unfasten her armour by hand. And his own, too. He smiles, just gently, when she helps him.

She stares at some of the pieces in fascination. Finely wrought, and heavier than she realized. Underneath he wears dark, shimmery fabric that moves like water beneath her fingers.

It matches his eyes.

He slips his hands beneath her tunic, and caresses her skin. Nips at her jaw, as she straddles his lap, and wraps her arms around his shoulders. The rest of their clothing comes away in bits and pieces, in between kisses and caresses. One of his hands strokes over her leg. The place where the bone had jutted out when she broke it. Now smooth flesh; now painless.

“It all fights me,” he whispers. “Even you fight me.”

There’s a tremble in his tone.

She swallows, and all at once she’s very aware of how close his sharp, sharp teeth are to the soft skin of her throat.

He sighs.

A string of broken elvish escapes him, before he captures her lips in a biting kiss. Sharp enough to draw blood. His grip on her tightens. The air seems to press in, until she pulls back, just slightly. Enough to try and look at him.

His expression is pained. His skin is clear, free of scales or blackened veins. Soft beneath her touch. There are no wings, no tail. No claws. He’s still strange, but he seems to be himself. Not struggling with it.

And yet.

“Solas?” she asks.

“It will be alright, my heart,” he promises.

The he pulls her close. Desperately close, pressing his skin to hers. This is something she knows, at least. She sighs, and soothes, and kisses his shoulder. Then she lets him press her to the ground. His breath is hot where he trails it downwards, over her collarbone. Lingering on her breasts a moment, before sliding further south, and hooking her legs over his shoulders.

He teases her with his tongue for a long while. Careful strokes that drag her straight up to the edge, before pulling back and away. She clutches at the ground beneath herself, hands twisting, until he finally pulls her to his lap again, and slides into her.

She is the one who turns a little fierce, then, bucking against him until she comes in rush of spark; riding it out until he joins her.

He lets out a heavy breath, when he does. His eyes slide shut, and he gathers her face between his hands. Presses a lingering kiss to her lips.

“I will miss this,” he says.

“What?” she asks.

Dark eyes snap open.

“Ir abelas. But I cannot lose this fight, and I cannot lose you, either.”

With a whisper, the world begins to go hazy and blank. She slumps against him, as her thoughts begin to slip away.

A sharp spike of fear courses through her.

Then silence, as she falls into a deep and dreamless sleep.

~

She wakes slowly.

There’s no light. Or, not much. She blinks, but whether her eyes are open or closed, the view seems much the same. Her skin tingles oddly. It takes her a moment to realize that there’s some strange vibration passing through the floor beneath her. Through the warm air around her. Her thoughts feel muddled, and distant. Like half of her mind is still stuck down the other end of a long tunnel.

She moves.

Sucks in a long breath, and lifts up her left hand.

The mark is gone.

There’s no flash of green, no brilliant light. Running her fingers across her palm reveals no trace of a scar.

She can still feel it, though.

Or… something, rather. Racing through her. She’s different, now. Something happened to her, and it’s… she’s…

What is this?

She tries to sit up.

The floor shifts beneath her.

Her heart jumps. She stills. Her eyes search the dark. Something gleams, silvery, up ahead. The moon, maybe? But it doesn’t feel like she’s outside. The air is too heavy, and there’s too much of a sense of something all around her.

A breeze brushes past her cheek.

The floor shifts again, and her nerves jangle as realization dawns. Something large moves through the air above her. She can hear it, like the extension of a large, leathery wing. Another breeze brushes by, hot; an exhaled breath from a massive set of jaws above her. When she sets a hand down, her palm brushes over smoothly textured scales.

The room or chamber or wherever she is, is filled with the body of a huge, draconic beast.

And she is lying on it.

There are probably no prizes for guessing who it might be.

“…Solas?” she asks, very quietly.

The ‘floor’ shifts again, much more noticeably this time. She slides sideways, a little, before something catches her. Flat and hard, but a little pliant where her elbow presses into it. There’s a soft _clink, clink, clink_ sound, and some of the silvery light catches on the smooth surface of several massive claws.

They curl around her, their tips _clinking_ where they strike the surface of the beast’s own scales. Then something else draws close. Dark, but she can feel the change in the air; the back-and-forth of deep breaths drawing near. And then the gleam off of large teeth, too.

The sheen over six dark and glittering eyes.

She is still as stone, tense with fear, as she hears the sound of – and feels the pull of – a single, large inhalation.

She swallows.

“Are… are you smelling me?” she asks, and makes herself seek out the black eyes in the dark room.

The beast exhales.

“Heart,” it says, in a low and deep voice. One that shakes through her bones. One that sends a gusty stream of breath cresting over her.

That’s where she is, she realizes. Resting on the dragon’s chest. The thrumming is the steady beat of its heart beneath her. Her mouth goes dry, and she wonders what has happened. What has become of the world, and of Solas. How much of him is even still in there; and how much hope she herself has, if the only coherence he has to offer her is some vague association between her and his internal organs.

 _At least he’s still talking,_ she thinks.

Reaching out, she rests a slightly shaky hand on one of the massive claws caged all around her.

“You’re too sharp, ma sa’lath,” she tells him. Her own voice sounds strained in her ears.

She can _feel_ it, though. It’s not really the air, she realizes. There’s something more to her senses, and the darkness she can’t see through, the oppressive aura weighing everything down, it’s all… _that._ A roiling aura of corruption, but settled, like a heavy shell around him. Thick enough to press her down where she is. To consume her just through proximity to it.

The massive palm holding her settles a little more firmly against her.

Another long breath pulls at her, and then blows across her.

 _Click, click, click_ go the claws around her, as they tap against his scales.

Then slowly, so slowly it takes her a moment to realize it’s even happening, the darkness begins to recede. It cracks and parts, like stars suddenly glinting into existence in the sky overhead. Silvery bits of light stream in. Break through, spreading in slow veins beneath her hands. For one brilliant moment, they illuminate the shape of a truly massive beast; with many limbs and many eyes and many wings. All of them dark. All of them split by the light, until she sees the outline of a long and surprisingly lupine face, covered in scales and crested with horns.

Then she’s falling.

The claws around her shift, and the body beneath her shudders. She drops.

It’s a frightening lurch, but it doesn’t last long before she’s being caught by a sturdy set of arms.

The world streams into focus.

Two full moons reflect silvery light down upon the shape and outline of a gleaming city. Stone and crystal spires reach up towards the stars, and the drifting shapes of passing clouds. Shining streets glow softly; but in the light of twin moons, it’s almost as bright as morning. Fountains and statuary seem to fill up every street corner, surrounding by glowing motes of light; faint chimes of song. Streamers blow through the air, and verdant plants fill massive gardens, and spill in abundant vines over doorways and walls.

She barely takes it in before most of her attention is arrested by the man holding her.

Dressed in black and silver finery. Pale, but not pale as death. When he smiles at her, his lips part to reveal flat teeth. Freckles dust across his unmarred skin.

His eyes are bright, and familiar, and without the faintest hint of shadow.

“Ma vhenan,” he says, gently.

She gapes, and holds his shoulders as he sets her on her feet.

She’s wearing something, she realizes. She doesn’t think she was before. But now a thin dress, gauzy and pale, slips down from her shoulders.

“Solas?” she asks.

But there’s something still wrong. She can feel it. A lurch inside of her, like a missing step. Like the world is twisted sideways and inside-out, and it’s almost worse, to see him like this – just as he should be – when something deep and fundamental inside of her is all but screaming in horror.

He tilts his head.

“Perhaps I should have left you as you were,” he says. His voice sounds distant. Almost detached. “But you could not have endured like that; and I think, perhaps, you would have been difficult to comfort anyway.”

Slowly, she withdraws her touch from him, and takes a step back.

Her drift around the strange city. Strange, and beautiful, and quiet; as if utterly devoid of any real life.

“What did you do?” she asks.

The man in front of her drops his smile. His expression goes cold; distant, and neutral.

“Truly remaking a world is no small task. Especially when the world is arrayed against the change,” he says. “In the end, he could not do it and fend off the others at the same time. The choices were between utter destruction, or progress. They warred within themselves. Most came down on the side of continued existence. You may be pleased to know that the one who did not was crushed to nothingness, in the end.”

No.

She searches his face. He looks himself. But she thinks, maybe, that’s not really him at all. A mask; a puppet.

“Where is Solas?” she asks.

He glances away from her. There is barely any expressiveness to him at all.

“I could say that I am Solas. That would be comforting, if you could believe it. But you already know better. I could say he is part of me, but I am more than the sum of many disparate parts. I am their unity into something more,” the figure explains. “Solas no longer exists. That spirit has been broken, and remade.”

Broken and…?

And…

Solas.

No.

No, no, no, no.

She drops.

Just plummets to the shining ground, like all the strings holding her up have been cut. Her knees hit the ground, and then her palms. Something in her reaches out, and where it should find what it seeks, instead it shatter. Slipping like frantic steps over thin ice. Cracking, falling through into cold and dreaded waters.

It’s true. It’s true, oh, no, _please_ , she doesn’t want it to be true. Her breaths sound ragged in her own ears. After a time she becomes aware of a low, keening cry. An awful sound. Like something’s dying.

Her throat hurts.

_Ma vhenan._

There is the whispering sound of fabric moving. A shadow falls beside her, and then a hand comes to rest at the center of her back.

“Hush, ma sa’lath,” the thing that looks like Solas says.

She flinches back, pushing herself to her feet. Clenching her fists as she stares him down anew. Her heart _wrenches_ in her chest, torn by his wrongness; by all the pieces of him that are, nevertheless, recognizable. Like he’s been possessed by a demon, except it’s nothing so simple. Like someone has carved pieces out of his soul, and threaded them together in a twisted sculpture made of other splintered beings.

“Give him back,” she demands.

The creature shakes his head, just slightly.

“I cannot,” he says. “What parts of me were him, and what were the others, is impossible to discern anymore. The only thing I know he gave me for certain is…”

He trails off.

She clenches her fist so tightly, her nails split the skin of her palm. Blood smears across her fingertips.

At length, the thing’s gaze slips away from her own.

“None of the others loved you,” he says.

The implication strikes her. Silences her. Her disquiet crests, and she takes another step further away. It’s all too much, it’s all boiling over, flooding out and she doesn’t know how to stop it. The air feels electrified with it. Her nerves are on fire, and she wants to lash out. Wants to scream. Wants to sink into the earth, and fade away, and never feel anything again.

“I do not love you!” she snaps. “I love _him.”_

“I am aware of that,” he says, simply.

No.

No, this can’t be real. There has to be a way to fix it. To undo it. There _has_ to.

She has to save him.

“Nothing can be permitted to jeopardize this new world,” the creature tells her.

She swallows.

He’s probably going to have to kill her, then. Because she can’t let this stand. She can’t…

He tilts his head.

“You are branded over my heart. You are written in my veins. Killing you would rip the very fabric of my being to shreds. Even the prospect of it fills me with dread; even your pain, now, is… extraordinarily unpleasant,” he asserts.

“Damn you!” she spits.

Hot tears burn their way down her cheeks.

He stares at her for a long and silent moment. The clouds drift past the moons overhead. Motes of light dance over the city streets. Not a single living being makes its presence known, anywhere, save for the two of them.

Just when she feels on the verge of doing something drastic – and she’s not even sure what – the creature that is not Solas inclines his head.

“You have been caged long enough. Do as you will,” he says. “If you find a way to… destroy me, then so be it. But there is no way to change what has been done. I am sorry, ma vhenan.”

He raises his hand. Reaches for her, as if to brush her cheek.

She pulls her head back.

“Do not call me that.”

He stills. His fingers twitch, once, and then he lowers his hand back to his side. For the barest moment, his neutral expression cracks open. Something painful leaks through. Something so thoroughly, vividly like the sight of Solas caught in the grips of misery, that she feels a surge of regret. A reflexive desire to take hold of him. Put her arms around him.

But it is not _him._

She blinks, and he is gone.

An unfamiliar world stretches, quietly, all around her.


	13. Transformation, Alternate

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: So would it be possible for us to get TDWH AU where Dark!Solas gets what he wants, as he envisioned it? We get so many hints about what he planned I've just been dying to see it in action! I guess it would have to be if the barrier never broke?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Solas’ plans almost never go as he envisions them. But the scenario that gets us closest to that is one that sort of shoots off from the ‘semi happily ever after’ AU.
> 
> So this starts out the same as that, and then veers distinctly sideways.

The first thing he does, when it is done; when the light that comes streaming into Skyhold is steady and strong, is keep his promise.

He gets rid of Dumat.

It’s a ball of energy; silvery instead of dark. She thinks it should look more like dripping tar, but remembers what it looked like when he first took it into himself, and it’s the same. Of course, it could be  _another_  soul, she supposes; but when he brings the brunt of his power to bear, and rends it before her eyes, the change in him is distinct.

He lets out a heavy breath.

“That was… he was worse than I realized,” he admits.

A bold declaration, considering how bad he had finally realized it  _was._

He’s still not back to normal, she doesn’t think. There are too many other souls in him, still so much power, so much strangeness. But he seems less sharp, somehow. Not so tense and strained, or stretched so thin, and when he looks at her the dark, deep well of his eyes reminds her less of the endless pit of the void, and more of a starry night sky.

He smiles.

“Still reading my mind?” she asks him.

“Yes,” he admits. “Though I have the cure for that, ma vhenan.”

She hesitates.

The air around Skyhold has changed. The barrier he put up is fading. Falling away, like rain-soaked stone drying in the sun, and she feels a deep pang of loss for the world. For all thought of life as she once knew it, and for all the things he has destroyed to make a blank canvas for the next stage.

“Not entirely blank,” he murmurs. “But I am sorry, for what had to be done.”

He reaches towards her, hand outstretched in request. In invitation.

She allows herself one more moment. One more lament for all of her failures.

Then she reaches back, and slips her left palm into his right.

He curls his fingers around her.

“It will be alright,” he promises her.

The anchor surges, then. Not all at once. It’s a slow trickle of energy that builds up and wraps around her. Starts from her palm and spreads through her arm, and rests across her shoulders, warming as it grows and sinks into her breastbone, and fills up her heart.

It bursts and flares, and for a second it’s so  _vast_. Not the same vastness as the glimpse of worlds between the crossroads, or the terror of almost being pulled in by Dumat; more like the vastness she’d felt the first time she’d been called ‘Inquisitor’. The first time power had fallen over her shoulders, and she had been forced to learn whether she could carry the strain, or if she would buckle beneath it instead.

When it passes, it’s followed by a wash of pain. Nerves on fire. She opens her mouth and cries out, but it’s gone almost as soon as it begins. Her body tingles with the echoes of it. Deep in her bones.

After those subside, she feels light.

Light like when you have been carrying something extremely heavy for a very long time, and then you put it down, and suddenly it’s as if your arms want to drift up and float away. Light, like the world is air and dust; light as not even the Fade could manage to make anyone feel.

She blinks, and sees colours more vividly than before. Breathes, and tastes the air differently in her lungs. Grips Solas’ hand, and feels a pulse from him; a thread both familiar and new. Impressions of sentiment, of connection, and concern.

“Oh,” she says.

She turns to see him staring at her, expression twisted in a moment of uncertainty.

“I’m alright,” she tells him, and knows it’s true.

She’s different; but she’s still herself.

Joy.

Success.

Pride.

She looks over to him, and blinks. His feelings. He uses his hold on her hand to draw her close, and hold her. Arms around her, tight, relief and then just…

Love.

At first she thinks it’s hers, because it feels so much the same. It washes over her and steals her breath, makes her heart stall, burns itself into her. Gentle with affection, fierce with desire, aching with worry, and abiding, as if nothing could ever really hope to sweep it away. But it’s not hers she’s feeling. Not right now.

A single, overwhelmed breath escapes her. She buries her face against his neck as her eyes burn.

“Me too,” she whispers.

“I know, vhenan. I could feel it,” he says, gently.

They stand for a moment. Or more than a moment, maybe, she thinks. Time treads differently, and her feelings… they aren’t  _stronger,_ she doesn’t think, but they pull at her in new ways. Like more of her is wrapped up in them, maybe. Like they want to draw her in, keep her there, hold her focus for longer.

It’s a little frightening.

“There will be no harm in it,” Solas tells her. “You will adjust, and I will help you. And you can keep me out now. If you wish to. Here, let me show you.”

He pulls slightly away from her, and takes both of her hands up in his. Presses kisses to the backs of her knuckles, and then she feels something… slide into place. Like an invisible wall. Or, no, that’s not really right. Like a withdrawal, back into himself.

She blinks, and realizes she can’t feel him anymore.

“Just like that,” he says.

She wants to ask ‘like what’, because she knows he did  _something_  but how she is supposed to…? But then it sort of… fits together. Like watching someone else tie a knot. She’s reaching out to him, she realizes; calling for him. It’s so blatant now she’s almost embarrassed about it.

He chuckles.

“I have never objected in the slightest,” he says.

Letting out a breath, she closes her eyes, and tries to mimic him. He slides his fingers through her own, and she pulls back. Pulls in. Stops reaching for him so blatantly. Retracts the invisible arm she hadn’t realized was perpetually stretched in his direction.

“Good,” he says. Though he looks a little wistful about it.

She regards him for a moment, and wonders if it works in reverse.

In an experimental rush, she floods him with all the force of affection she can muster.

His eyes go wide.

“Did I do that ri-”

She cuts off as something sweeps over her in return. A wave, so strong, of fierce warmth and longing and admiration, of regret and of joy, and her breath stops and the world is bright, and it’s so strong she staggers into it. Doesn’t even realize that they’re kissing until some of the heady rush subsides and she comes back from it to find that their lips are sealed together. Her arms are wound around his neck, and his tongue is in her mouth.

It feels different, on so many levels. She feels  _him_  on so many levels. Not just flesh against flesh, not even just feelings racing back and forth, sinking into one another and creating something strange - something unique unto itself - no, not even just that. But she doesn’t quite have the words for it. He is… he is Solas.

And she loves Solas, very much.

And Solas loves her very much, too; even tangled, still, in the threads of other souls.

They kiss for a long time.

It doesn’t feel like a long time, though. It doesn’t feel like any time. It feels like time doesn’t matter. Like the need to move on to other things is a distant idea; a concept to be considered or disregarded with the same validity either way. She could kiss him forever. Or, if not quite that, then at least for a very long while. Her lips won’t readily tire and her mind won’t easily bore, not any longer.

It’s a little frightening, just how different  _everything_  is.

Solas slowly pulls back.

“Not so different,” he tells her. “It is has always been there, in many ways.”

 _This has always been between us,_  he thinks, and she sees it the way that he sees it. When she was little more than a spirit, thrust into his life by the most peculiar twist of fate. And he was not alone, anymore. That would have been enough. But she offered him more, still. More than companionship. More than the mystery. A calamitous accident bound them together, and his other self set her free, and then she came to him, and granted him  _connection_.

They have woven themselves into one another, now.

She reaches for the latches of his armour, and piece by piece, begins to pull it away.

It’s not a frantic scrambling. There is no great lust in her, at the moment. She takes the armour from him, the sharp edges and hard surfaces, because that isn’t him. Slowly, carefully, she peels off the excess. Then she smooths her hands over the fabric of his tunic beneath it. Finds that the threads melt away at the urging of her touch; but she abandons this method in short order, and strips him bare by hand, leaving him only in soft breeches and boots before he finally stills her.

She looks at him, and it all trembles through her.

_I love you. I want you to be safe. I want you to be happy. I want you, only you. You deserve peace, you deserve comfort. Your soul is precious, and whatever you have done I would rescue you from this fate. Let me._

_Let me._

He leans into her, and puts his arms around her. His lips brush her temple.

 _This is my burden,_ he thinks. _I must bear it._

There is still too much to do.

But they have time, now. The hurry is done. The world will not hurt for waiting, and so they hold one another again, as the air around them grows still and steady. When he finally pulls back, he threads their fingers together. Again, he kisses the backs of her knuckles. Soft and reverent.

He draws her back through the doorway, and into the hall. Towards the thrones that sit, waiting, upon their dais.

She doesn’t want to rule. Not really. But he needs her, and the world will need her; he’s sure of it.

 _Not yet, though,_ he promises her. Not quite yet. He leads her past them, and through the winding stairwell, and she sees more in his art than she did before. More of what he means; of what he has hidden in the shapes and colours. Secrets and mysteries and messages. Longing, memory, and hope. It enthralls her for a moment, but they are still too caught up in one another to linger very long.

In the bedchamber, he brushes her cheek, and she curls a hand around the back of his neck. Looks into his eyes again.

Flecks of brightness in the black.

She presses forward and kisses him. Her heart speeds up, and she drifts into the warmth of his welcome, and affections. The ache of loving him. One kiss turns to many, peppered across his lips; drawn out and then pressed tight, until he runs his hands down her side, and plucks at her own clothes.

He undresses her with the same slow, lingering care she applied to him. Kisses her in between each article of clothing he lifts away. He runs his fingertips across her collarbones, and wraps his hands around her shoulders. He loves her, every inch of her, and he takes a profound delight in being able to let her feel how much. He’s tried to show her, before, but never to a satisfying degree. Her own regard for him has poured from her, and he has felt so inadequate at responding; at reciprocating, when he could not let her in to feel the same from him.

But now he can, and he showers her in adoration until she is drenched in it. Until her hands are shaking, a little, and she doesn’t even know what to do with it except turn it back towards him. Because he loves her like she loves him, and she loves him so much it’s staggering, sometimes; and she has been staggering him with it. And now it is her turn to be awed.

“Ar lath ma,” he sighs, caught up in his relief at being able to express it so fully.

She reaches for the waistband of his pants, suddenly impatient to have all of him bared, and he sighs again and laughs, and keeps distracting her with kisses and touches, and vibrant shades of feeling. When she finally gets him naked, he tugs her down to the bed, and the spark of arousal she feels melts into his own.

Something drags at him.

Something that isn’t the bond between them.

The wrong souls threaded through his pull for a moment.

She clutches him back. Protectiveness flares in her, fierce and unyielding, and for a second she feels as if she is outside of her own skin. She sinks into his, instead, perceptions shifting into a field of stark light and shadow, and cuts herself on the sharp edges of the prison inside of him. Fights them for him until he pries her away, and the moment passes.

He sighs, and leans back to look at her.

“It is alright,” he says. “You have me.”

She does.

And if he will not get rid of them, at the very least, now, she knows just how well she can draw him away from them. He has shown her how much of himself has truly been granted to her; how deeply she, too, is woven in with him. With Dumat’s influence gone, they are stronger.

Maybe even strong _enough._

She presses her forehead against his.

“Mine,” she tells him, and all the rest of them, too.

He laughs. A swell of surprise and affection, of answering sentiment.

“Freely given,” he agrees.

With a hum of approval, she begins to spread soft kisses down his neck. She pauses at his pulse, and then traces her lips over his freckles. Wriggles her way down the pale expanse of him, caught up in the heady rush of it all. Of all the facets of her regard, and all the ways in which it is returned. She worships his skin; traces the curve of his muscles with her touch, and kisses the softer flesh of his belly. The warmth in her is a vast and patient ocean, and she has time to press her admiration into every last inch of him.

And so she does, until he draws her back up to return the favour.

The light in the room changes, and changes again as they both drift with one another. Long caresses and light touches.

They find a rhythm. Unhurried and exploratory, as if they have never done anything like this before.

He slips his fingers into her, spreading her open in slow circles as she leans into him, and just breathes him in for a moment. She kisses his cheek and murmurs affection at him, and catches one of his ears between her teeth, and nibbles as he hardens against her thigh.

He wants this to last. They both do.

But there is a certain… intensity in him about it. A determination. She is here, with him, and every promise he has ever made, aloud or in silence, about how he would treat her, how he _should_ treat her, is at last free to be paid upon. When she reaches for him he takes her hand, and threads their fingers together. Desire surges through the air, fierce and purposeful, overwrought with love; sharpened, somewhat, by the edges of all that has ever gone wrong between them.

“ _Vhenan,”_ she breathes, as he trails kisses down her stomach, and past her navel, and then across the insides of her thighs. As he licks his way into her, dragging slow sparks of pleasure from her. Withdrawing only to pepper her with more kisses and caresses whenever she comes. But it’s almost the feelings more than the physical sensations that draw the gasps and moans from her. The surge of overwhelming warmth that burrows deep into her chest, and flares brilliantly at his touch.

It is so… so…

He pulls her more firmly against him, mouth insistent, drawing sparks from her flesh until she feels like she is bursting inside. Like her heart has been cracked open and left to spill all the intensity of her love through every vein in her.

It almost hurts, really.

“Solas,” she gasps. “Solas, please…”

She reaches for him, and he finally halts his ministrations to answer her. Crawling up until she can pull him into her arms, and kiss him fiercely. She wraps her legs around him and drags him in towards her; trails her mouth down his jaw, just shy of frantic until he finally sinks into her. He shudders, and she seizes the moment and flips him onto his back. Jostles them both a bit before sinking onto him again.

Then she leans over him a moment, propping herself up in the dizzying whirlwind of feeling they’re both still drowning one another in. He’s so beautiful, beneath her. Lips red and swollen from kisses, breaths ragged, eyes closed.

“Ma sa’lath,” she sighs, and cups his cheek; coaxing him until he opens his eyes and meets her gaze.

A sudden rush washes across her. Oh, he _loves_ when she calls him that. When he is her one, just one, when she does not hesitate over her feelings for him in another future. When there is no divide between himself and her and a life never lived.

“Emma lath, ma sa’lath,” she repeats, looking into his dark eyes, and seeing _him_ there.

She rests her forehead against his.

After a few seconds he tilts, just slightly, and captures her lips in the softest of kisses. His hands smooth over her back. Then trail cross her hips, and down over her thighs.

“Vhenan,” he whispers.

At last, she starts to move.

A slow and deliberate rhythm that makes his grip on her tighten. Makes the heat coil low in her, delicious and worth savouring, as she drags them both slowly to completion. As they come undone. The light in the room shifts again before she finally stiffens and shudders, clenching around him. Pulling a gasp from his lips, and leaning in to devour it as he spills inside of her.

Gently, she brushes the backs of her fingers across his temple.

“My heart,” she sighs, as a wave of potent love and protectiveness and bittersweet resolve builds in up her. She doesn’t think to try and hold it back. It surges forth, the whole mess of feelings crashing into them both.

A broken curse escapes his lips.

In a burst of ferocity, he sweeps her up. Actually stands from the bed, and presses her into the wall. Up against his sprawling murals, he smothers her in kisses, and floods her with the intensity of his own feelings. This is why. This is _why_. He would seat her on a hundred thrones, he would hand her half the world he has remade, and he _must_ , because she… after thousands of years of living and dreaming, of watching the world drive itself to the brink again and again, of seeing all his efforts bring only yet more ruination and suffering, he had not expected to ever find this.

He had not expected to meet someone so easy to understand and admire. So bright, and fierce, and _kind_.

Out of all the people he has met in the long and fraught journey of his life, he likes her the most.

She cannot help the sudden spark of amusement that flares in her. Her hands smooth down his back. He nips at her bottom lip when she smiles.

“You’re my favourite, too,” she assures him.

He huffs; though it does very little to disguise the genuine pleasure that washes through him.

Reaching down, he helps her hook her legs around his waist. Then he delves into her again, pinning her between himself and the mural as his hips roll.

“We are going to do this in every single room in this fortress,” he promises.

She digs her fingers into the backs of his shoulders.

“Is that s-ah!” she cuts off with a gasp as he shifts and lifts her legs a little more, and thrusts into her at an angle that makes her brain turn off for a moment. He drives into her that way until she comes, shaking, and all but collapses against him.

“Every, single, room,” he reiterates, moving in time with the words before he follows her over the edge. Then he lets out a long breath, and it’s back to gentle touches and soft kisses between them again.

They don’t actually christen _every_ room.

Some of them just don’t have the atmosphere for it, to be honest.

She does pin him to the War Room table, though, and lets him return the favour in the tavern. They have a do-over in the gardens – much more successful than the last attempt – and when they get to the rotunda, they both linger, a moment, before she leads him to the center of the room. Where she once found a wolf, sleeping. Where she once spent hours, sitting and talking.

As it happens, they settle their arms around one another, and only kiss for a long, subdued moment.

“Get rid of one more,” she asks him.

He sighs, and breathes her in.

“Just one more soul. One more can’t hurt. Get rid of Falon’Din, he always sounded like an ass even in the good stories.”

“Vhenan-”

He cannot.

“You _can,”_ she points out, quietly.

But he won’t.

She lets out a heavy breath, and leans into him. Presses her face against his shoulder, as he tries to reassure her. He as much himself as she is herself. It is easier now, and he can hold onto this power. He can make sure that the world will not fall astray; and she can, too. He has astonishing faith in her ability to keep things from going disastrously wrong.

“Because I have had _so much_ success so far,” she can’t help but quip.

She couldn’t save the world from him, after all. Or save him from himself.

“Perhaps it was a world worth saving. But that does not mean it could be saved,” he tells her. “This one can be. You and I, we shall keep such terrible things from ever happening again. We shall share this power, and hold one another in check. And we shall grant it to no one else. The world will follow the course that we chart to greatness.”

She doesn’t know how he can have so much faith in that idea.

He sighs, heavily.

It may not be faith. It may only be hope, in the end, that not all worlds are doomed.

After a moment, he releases her. He steps back, and with a flourished gesture, clothes them both once more. His soft skin vanishes beneath his dark and imposing armour. He clads her in silvery brightness, in turn.

She stares down at the gleaming, well-fitted armaments, and shimmering fabric.

No.

No, if this is the world, and if this is his plan, brought to fruition, and she must play this part, it will never be wholly as he has scripted it.

She gestures at herself. Pulls at the tendrils of reality. Reshapes things in a way that has now become intrinsic to her; that was once utterly alien. The silver dulls. The brightness fails. Like stars, it lingers only here and there, in faint patches. The outfit fades from a gleaming vision, to a solid, somber grey.

Solas regards her quietly. He thinks she does not understand. For all that he has tried to show her, she cannot see what she truly is. But she _can_. That is the point. There are no shining heroes in this tale. She has not saved him.

Still.

She takes his hand.

“I will do my best,” she tells him.

He gives her hand a gentle squeeze.

Then he leads her back into the main hall. To the waiting thrones.

To the world they must awaken, and rule.


End file.
